"Billy DeFrank was an entertainer, a teacher, a leader, a good friend, and a champion of gay freedom. You never had a doubt he cared; if there was a need he would be there, one way or another. He showered gay California with his love," Goldie Montana once said of the late beloved drag entertainer and royal court participant.
Members of his South Bay community agreed, and today, a center with 25 years of LGBT history carries DeFrank's name as it makes social and political strides in a community that extends and connects the Bay Area's LGBT political influence to other regions of the state.
The Billy DeFrank LGBT Community Center of San Jose serves as this year's organizational grand marshal of San Francisco's LGBT Pride Parade, an honor that is befitting, said development director Chris Weber, given the center's 25th anniversary and the increasing overlap and complementary roles of the South Bay and San Francisco LGBT communities.
"There are some aspects that are different but we are a uniting anchor up and down Silicon Valley," said Weber, adding that San Jose's DeFrank center and annual Pride celebration mean that those who must commute to work don't have to sacrifice an LGBT community in order to pursue their livelihoods. "The lines between us and San Francisco are blurred a lot. People are going back and forth between both cities frequently. A lot of people north of San Francisco also come down our way as well. And the DeFrank center is open to anyone who wants to use our services."
It was 1980 when the residents of Santa Clara County voted to repeal their gay housing and employment protections. One year later, when the Billy DeFrank Lesbian and Gay Community Center opened its doors on Keyes Street in downtown San Jose, "its first visitors entered more than just a building. They crossed the threshold to a new era of possibility for the gay and lesbian community of the South Bay, and they celebrated an important victory," according to the DeFrank center Web site. Emerging strong from defeat, the center "has continued to inspire purposeful action and ensure a safe place to gather for all in our community."
Today, the DeFrank center serves LGBT people of all ages and backgrounds. Over 1,000 people a month visit its current building on Stockton Avenue to participate in everything from community bingo to dating games to support groups. Many more people – from as far north as Foster City to as far south as Gilroy – call the center's switchboard seeking information and services.
It's been quite a year for the DeFrank Center. In February, the center hired Aejaie Sellers as its new executive director. The openly transgender Sellers has a background in strategic planning, financial management, program development and implementation, fundraising and grant writing.
For two decades, Sellers had been working in the nonprofit arena helping others while keeping her private life very private. That changed with her new job.
"This job offered me an opportunity to bring my personal life and professional life together," Sellers, 41, told the Bay Area Reporter earlier this year. "It's like a coming out party."
And Sellers has helped put the center in the news since taking over. She appeared on Ticker Carlson's The Situation on MSNBC this spring and defended state Senator Sheila Kuehl's (D-Santa Monica) bill that would include information about prominent LGBT individuals in school curriculum. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has since announced plans to veto the bill, according to a report last month in the Sacramento Bee .
Earlier this month, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to include a one-time funding of $375,000 to establish HIV counseling and testing services for targeted at-risk populations for fiscal year 2007. Such funding could enable locations like the DeFrank center to provide culturally appropriate HIV testing for its community members if and when the board gives it final approval to the budget.
The DeFrank center also just recently announced winning two significant grants: $15,000 from the Cisco Foundation for the DeFrank's AIDSNet Sentry program to provide HIV/STD prevention information to approximately 1,500 Internet users during fiscal year 2006-2007; and $10,000 grant request from the Safeway Foundation Center to host several breast health educational workshops throughout fiscal year 2006-2007. The DeFrank center's annual budget is about $650,000.
"We're very excited about these grants and the direction they will enable the DeFrank center to go," said Weber. "It all goes toward being able to fulfill its tenets of leadership advocacy, and support."
At Sunday's San Francisco Pride Parade, the DeFrank center's float will be a "moving block party," and about 100 people are expected to participate.
"It's just great to feel that we get that level of support from not only the South Bay but from the whole Bay Area community," Sellers said after receiving word the center had been selected as organizational grand marshal. "This honor is just huge."
This year's Pride theme of "Commemorate, Educate, Liberate, Celebrate" is especially meaningful to the center, said Weber, in that all of those messages are themes that "the DeFrank center stands behind."
"It's an exciting time. There are a lot of things going on," said Weber. "And we have champions in Sacramento and locally making sure we get the same rights and responsibilities as other people have. Our liberation is about our civil rights – not special rights."
For more information on the DeFrank center, visit www.defrank.org or call (408) 293-2429.