Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club

Our Club holds its Political Action Committee meetings every second Tuesday of the month from 7pm-9pm at the Galería de la Raza at 2857 24th Street.

We also hold our General Membership meetings every third Tuesday of the month from 7pm-9pm at the Women's Building at 3543 18th Street.

About the Club:

"My name is Harvey Milk and I'm here to recruit you!"

The Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club: one of San Francisco's largest Democratic Clubs, is respected for both its progressive history and political actions, empowering activists and members of marginalized backgrounds, and bolstering the resistance to status quo politics, changing rather than reifying power dynamics that leave members of our community behind.

Founded in 1976 as the San Francisco Gay Democratic Club, a controversial and radical move to include "GAY" in the title of the organization, it was the City's first Democratic Club with the word "gay" in its name.

The Milk Club is a place for people to be political, left, and queer. It is also a Club founded to keep the LGBT community free of anointed gatekeepers and machine politics. The Club was renamed for Supervisor Harvey Milk after his assassination in 1978.

Although the Club is well into its fourth decade, its role has not changed. Consistently, it has supported solidly progressive issues in San Francisco. It was instrumental in electing progressive queers and pushing issues that have changed the world, from Harry Britt, Tom Ammiano, Carole Migden, Rafael Mandelman, and Tom Temprano, to early sex education about HIV, domestic partnerships, and safe injection facilities.

You don't have to be queer to be part of this Club, and you certainly don't have to be a Democrat. It is a place for anyone who thinks there ought to be a place for queerness in the progressive struggle and a place for progressive politics in the queer community.

We embody the same cultural radicals who joined the club forty years ago. This is a Club for queers, dykes, transgender people, people of color, sex workers, the differently abled, heavy-set people, leather people, and people who don't want to fit in. It's also a place for political radicals and progressives, who want to see a different world for women, labor, tenants, orphans, the unhoused, the undocumented, working-class folks, and the non-rich.

Radicals don't expect to engage in traditional politics throughout most of the country. In San Francisco, our Club is expected to interrogate city officials and to shape their agendas for an inclusive future. Our preamble says "we demand nothing less" than full support for queer rights and nothing less than full support for progressive issues.