Street Patrol in the Castro, early 90s

In the early 90s I was a member of Queer Nation, an activist organization which organized each chapter in small grops called focus groups. These were formed ad hoc around slices of identity or around a particular issue or function, and they tended to be named with humorous acronyms. The women's group was called LABIA, which stood, I think, for Lesbians And Bisexuals In Action; a group meant to welcome new members to QN was called WINQ, Welcoming In New Queers. Groups were also formed for specific purposes; it was on this date 16 years ago that GHOST, or Grand Homosexual Outrage against Sickening Televangelists, led a protest against televangelist Larry Lea, who had vowed to "exorcise the demons" from San Francisco on Halloween night. (Read more news articles about the Larry Lea protest.)

After a series of gay bashings in the Castro, someone formed a Guardian Angels-like safety patrol called DORIS SQUASH which was later renamed simply the Street Patrol. (A history of the Street Patrol is on the GLBT History website; I also published an article in Frighten the Horses in Spring 1991 by Street Patrol "queen" Ellen Twiname.)

One of the big weekends of the year for the Street Patrol was Halloween, when hundreds of thousands of revelers pack a few blocks in the Castro District for a disorganized street party. Due to the event's fame, people come from all over the region to gawk at costumed revelers; people also come from all over to bash gay people. Also, the later it gets, the drunker the crowd gets. So there's a large police presence, but since the police and the gay community have always had a distrustful relationship, the police prefer to stay on the edges. This meant that the only people doing security inside the event itself were the Street Patrol.

I was in the Street Patrol from fall 1990 until sometime in late 1992 or early 1993, and this was a way for me to attend Castro Halloween without having to dress in costume (though the SP did have a uniform of sorts: a Street Patrol t-shirt, usually worn with a leather jacket, and a fuscia beret). About a dozen of us marched two-by-two through the party, and especially around the edges where bashers might target a lone pedestrian, from about 9 pm until the last stragglers had departed -- way after 3 a.m. It was crowded, exciting, exhausting and, as it got later and later and the number of drunks grew larger and drunker, a pain in the ass.

I remember one exciting moment when we did apprehend a psychopath who was brandishing what turned out to be a screwdriver. But to tell you the truth, most of the protecting we did was protecting the drunks from themselves or each other. They would get in stupid fights -- it wasn't gay-bashing so much as two or three drunken queers jabbing at each other -- and we would break the fights up. I also like to think that our presence discouraged some gay bashing.

In 1991 the CBS show 48 Hours sent a camera crew along with us, and we were in a show on neighborhood safety in spring 1992.

Street Patrol, Queer Nation, Castro District, Halloween