In Liberal San Francisco, Black Gay Men Are Out But Never In
In the Castro district, a mecca of the gay community, subtle codes expect Black people, like Carnell Freeman, to suppress their Blackness in order to be accepted.
If you were to take a walk one day in Fanta Citron, in Mvog-Ada, the shantytown where I grew up in Yaoundé, Cameroon, you would undoubtedly admire the sense of unity among the women of the neighborhood. It would be hard to tell which ones weren’t sisters, as they supported each other and often walked in small groups. Whenever one passed by, the others would greet her with warm salutations, followed by a flurry of conversation that we children watched with great curiosity and amusement. We often imitated them during our soccer matches, each of us striving to deliver the best impersonation we could.
Even we children sometimes got confused about family ties because we called or addressed all the adults as “Papa XXX” or “Mama XXX.” It was the norm. You could receive an unforgettable punishment if you dared to call any adult in the neighborhood by their first name. This was the concept of family in our culture. The family, indeed, is broad.
The solidarity among the women was unique — it was the glue that held the neighborhood together. If one of them saw another woman’s husband with another woman, she would confront both the unfaithful parties, acting as though she were the one being cheated on. If any of the women caught you doing something foolish, they wouldn’t hesitate to stop and reprimand you. They would meddle in each other’s affairs, but in a way that felt protective and caring. It was like a form of communal cooperation for private matters. Together, they formed a united front against the men, who, according to our traditions, were revered and celebrated.
Within this unity, however, there was a fissure — one that took the form of a hierarchy among the women. This hierarchy was based on the ability to give birth. Our tribes and customs sanctified motherhood. A man was considered a true man if he had children, and the more children he had, the more respect he garnered. The same was true for women. The only difference was that when a woman was unable to have children for any reason, she was ostracized. She was often labeled a witch and blamed for all the misfortunes and hardships that befell her family — and sometimes even her neighbors. Such infamy never touched men. It was never their fault.
The troubling part was that it was often the women themselves who excluded those who could not bear children. They adopted an air of superiority, relegating these women to the background through constant microaggressions. They excluded them. In my maternal family, Auntie Philomène — or Tata Philo, as we children called her — was the one who faced discrimination. She had been unable to have children due to medical reasons. Instead of offering her comfort or the space to grieve, the women in the neighborhood made sure everyone knew that she was considered less of a woman than they were, that she was inferior to them. As a result, she was the last person to be asked for advice, and when she was allowed to speak, it was out of “magnanimity,” as Uncle Etoundi used to say. During family gatherings, she was often ignored. When Cousin Mendounga got married, Tata Philo was not allowed to ask for anything. Usually, the dowry consists of family members — parents, uncles, aunts, and grandparents — writing down requests, within reason. Tata Philo was left out.
The adults had decided that since Auntie Philomène had no children, they saw no reason why she should indulge herself at the expense of others. She was the last to know about family matters but always the first to be blamed when something went wrong. It was always her sisters and sisters-in-law who led the way — those who ostracized her, those who made it clear that she wasn’t truly welcome, or, at best, was merely tolerated.
My mother and Auntie Blandine were inseparable, as were Auntie Ebogo and Auntie Juliette, and Auntie Anata and Auntie Bebe. Auntie Nfegue and Auntie Nnomo were the same. But Auntie Philomène was alone. She tried repeatedly to align herself with one of these pairs, but deep down, she knew she was just being tolerated. No matter how strong the family ties, she would never truly be part of their intimate lives.
Cousin Ayi and I used to nickname her the little “lame duck.” It pained us to watch her make such an effort to be included by one of the “duos” only to be rejected. The other women in the neighborhood treated her the same way, and so did my uncles. This was the fate reserved for the Auntie Philos of our tribes.
The irony, though, was seeing these same women band together to mock men or to attack a man for disrespecting one of them. In front of men, they would close ranks. But when the men weren’t around, they consciously repeated the same treatment and humiliation they themselves had suffered.
— “That’s just the way it is,” my mother told me a few years ago when I asked her about what I had observed back then. “There’s nothing you can do about it; that’s just the way it is.”
Auntie Philo was listening quietly. She had accepted her fate. The two of them were visiting me at the time — I was living in Paris, France. My mother and the other women from the neighborhood and village still saw Auntie Philomène as their inferior. I was amazed that my mother didn’t even seem to notice how painful that was for her sister. It was a double whammy, and the hurt was spilling out in large, unspoken drops.
It was the pain of Auntie Philomène, her helplessness that night in Paris, and the humiliations and discrimination she endured from the same women who had once allied with her in challenging the supremacy of men, that came to mind while listening to some gay Black men and a queer Black individual in early March in San Francisco, the temple of progressivism in America.
— “It’s tough being a Black gay man here,” Carnell Freeman, 49, a financial advisor at Corebridge Financial, told me on March 7, as we were having a drink and some chicken wings at Copper, a popular gay bar in the Castro district where he had asked me to meet him. “There’s a lot of anti-Blackness that exists here. The people who do well here are White and Asians.”
It was a beautiful day. The annoying San Francisco wind had decided to take a break. It was around 3:30 PM local time. The bar was buzzing, as were the bars next door and across the street. We were the only two Black people in the bar. (We were joined later by Danique, another Black gay man) I was in San Francisco on my journey to chronicle the Men’s Counter Revolution in America.
Most of the White people I met during that trip were critical of President Donald Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance, and especially fuming at billionaire and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. They told me that Musk, who had once been part of their tech community, had lost his way. They called him a “White supremacist.” They dubbed Trump and Vance racist, misogynistic, and bullies because of their assaults on DEI, mass deportations of illegal immigrants, and the dismantling of the federal government by DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency). But as I listened to Freeman, Jaren (Jay) Johnson, Chef Yann, Danique, all gay Black men, and Kevin Abrams, a non-binary queer Black individual, sharing their experiences within the LGBTQ+ community, I couldn’t help but wonder whether San Francisco was aware that it had no lessons to give to the Trump administration.
From the outside, the gay community in San Francisco is often judged through the prism of a few naked men wandering through the Castro district. This, most people believe, is proof that the city is welcoming, open, tolerant, and multicultural — a place where you can be yourself, a haven for LGBTQ+ individuals and marginalized communities. The image is further burnished by the city’s reputation as a labyrinth of sex parties, saunas, and the Folsom Street Fair, the kink pilgrimage.
But when you look closely and peel back the layers of marketing, you uncover the wounds, the suffering, the humiliations, and the same stigmas and stereotypes imposed by straight White men on society at large. The Black gay men I met and talked to explained that, in addition to the daily discrimination linked to their skin color and the stigma associated with being homosexual or different from the norms, they also had to contend with racial discrimination within a community they thought they were part of. They told me they had hoped to find solidarity in San Francisco. They had left places like Massachusetts, Texas, and New York, hoping that the city would allow them to be their authentic selves, just to be themselves. Instead, they were met with rejection. They quickly became disillusioned, discovering that “tolerant San Francisco” was nothing more than a mirage.
— “Yes, San Francisco is tolerant and open, but only for White and Asian gay men,” said Johnson, 28, who moved to the city in 2019, a few months after graduating from college. “Being a Black gay man in San Francisco means you have to suppress a part of yourself to be accepted into gay spaces. You have to edit who you are.”
Johnson was born and raised outside Detroit, Michigan. He came out just a few months before moving to San Francisco for a job as a healthcare consultant. He thought the city would help him navigate his newfound identity as a gay man smoothly. What he didn’t expect was that he would have to confront almost the same stereotypes in the Castro district that he had heard and experienced in the Midwest.
— “It was always like, ‘Hi, how’s it going?’ and not ‘Wassup?’,” he told me. “The latter is probably more the kind of greeting I’d use where I’m from, in Detroit. I feel like I had to evolve because it didn’t register the same way in San Francisco.”
The gay community here has replicated the racial hierarchy imposed by straight White men. It’s a copy-and-paste system, but with the Bay Area’s significant Asian population included. At the top of the ladder are White gay men, followed by Asian gay men… and then, nothing. You have to go down two or three steps to find Black, Latino, and Southeast Asian gay men. This racial hierarchy is pervasive in the Castro district, the city’s gay hub, and comes with its own set of codes, as the Black LGBTQ+ individuals I spoke with explained. They said they are expected to be palatable in order to be admitted to certain spaces. They must make White and Asian gay men feel comfortable and do everything they can to avoid “scaring” them. They feel compelled to perform because most gay spaces in the city are dominated by White or Asian men.
— “You gotta be palatable; you gotta be non-frightening,” Freeman said.
— “What does that mean?” I asked him.
— “I’d say that if I were to approach an Asian guy in a bar — which I have — you’ve got to be mindful of how you approach them,” he explained. “The chances are many of them don’t want to be approached by a Black person, so they’ll be a little nervous. So, I have to make sure I’m very bubbly, laughing, and smiling, all that stuff, so it’s not frightening or scaring them.”
He continued:
— “You have to code-switch like you do in a job; that’s the kind of thing, you know, you have to do here.”
Johnson took matters into his own hands. He had had enough of being tolerated and being the only Black person in the room. He decided to create a WhatsApp group called “Real Black Gays of the Bay” to provide Black LGBTQ+ individuals with a space they could call their own community. The group now has nearly 270 members, and subgroups have also been created, such as Bay Area Black Gaymers. He left San Francisco for Washington, D.C., two years ago.
— “I had to be palatable enough to make them feel comfortable,” he said. “I was kind of ‘chosen’ to be the only Black person. It was a little unnerving.”
He described the lengths he had to go to in order to receive the bare minimum of “grace” that White and Asian gay men receive in the Castro district, just because of the color of their skin.
— “I felt like I had to be very light-hearted, very trivial, and always kind — almost like a character — just to make people feel comfortable. I felt like there were qualities I had to put on, in addition to how I look, to receive that same level of grace.”
— “Did I suppress too much of myself?” he asked at one point during our conversation.
For Auntie Philomène, the answer was a big yes. She did suppress herself.
In 2004, a group of activists filed a complaint with the San Francisco Human Rights Commission, accusing Badlands, one of the popular bars in the Castro, owned by Les Natali, a local powerful businessman, of racial discrimination. The complaint alleged that Black patrons were asked for multiple forms of ID, unlike White patrons, or were outright denied entry.
The Human Rights Commission found substantial evidence of discrimination, leading to boycotts and protests. While Natali denied the allegations, the case highlighted the deep-rooted racial biases within the city’s LGBTQ+ nightlife scene.
Natali has a long, controversial history with Black LGBTQ+ individuals. That same year, he bought the Pendulum, a bar in the Castro that catered to Black gay men. It was one of the few spaces in the Castro where Black LGBTQ+ individuals felt they belonged. He closed it in June 2005 for renovations, which coincided with the controversy surrounding Badlands. The Pendulum recently reopened under a new name, Toad Hall, but no longer caters to the Black LGBTQ+ community, leaving them without a space.
I walked around the Castro district that day, and the population was over 95% White and Asian. Most of the establishments, from bars to restaurants to coffee shops, were owned by non-Black and non-Latino people, and so were the patrons. I was told to go to Oakland if I wanted to see any Black gay establishments.
Kevin Abrams, 40, moved from Texas to the Bay Area ten years ago. Their day job involves working with deaf children and kids with other disabilities. They are deaf themselves and describe themselves as a non-binary, queer Black person. At night, they perform as a drag queen named Iman. They told me that the White LGBTQ+ community in the Castro, which they referred to as a “bubble,” doesn’t want to discuss issues they feel are not their own. They don’t want to engage with topics related to Blackness and the struggles tied to it, which may explain why Black LGBTQ+ individuals are often unwelcome in White and Asian-dominated spaces. To be accepted and tolerated, they have to leave their Black identity at the door. They must assimilate completely and make White gay men’s issues their top priority.
— “We want to ignore it because it’s just easier to sweep it under the rug and keep the status quo,” they said, adding that they received microaggressive comments “all the time.”
Freeman agreed: “You’re not going to talk about racism, you are not going to talk about Black issues; you basically have to assimilate to their ways; you have to blend in.”
Yann, a thirty-something Black chef, told me he’s been stereotyped ever since he moved to San Francisco from New York. Not that it’s much different, but at least in the Big Apple, there were Black gay spaces. He said that because of his darker complexion, whenever he is in a “White space” in the Castro district, there’s an assumption that he is “threatening” and “aggressive.” At the same time, he believes he’s also fetishized, hypersexualized, and seen as “exotic” by White and Asian gay men all the time.
— “I am having a beer, minding my business. This White guy offers to take me home,” he said. “It happens all the time. Some even grabbed my d**k.”
Since they consider him sex material, none sees him as a boyfriend or a partner material, Chef Yann said.
— “Next time I see them, they have a White boyfriend, or an Asian boyfriend, never a Black boyfriend,” he laughed.
— “Most of the couples are going to be White and White, or White and Asian,” Freeman said.
The San Francisco case is not unique. A 2020 survey by the Center for American Progress revealed that 33% of Black LGBTQ+ individuals reported experiencing discrimination, significantly impacting their daily lives.
It’s clear that Freeman, Johnson, Chef Yann, and Abrams have hidden or buried deep within them all the rejection and the constant struggle to be accepted in a community that is quick to criticize those who marginalize it but doesn’t hesitate to use the same tactics to suppress others.
They’re not complaining. They just want the LGBTQ+ community to take a hard look in the mirror and stop pretending to be open.
— “As Black people, we understand very, very well how to create and craft niche relationships in order to survive,” Abrams said. “I feel like we’re not just surviving, but we’re learning how to create things so we can thrive. We could be bigger, we could be better, and get out of this survival hustle mentality, which is not necessarily a bad thing.”
Their laugh said it all. It was the laugh of someone who has decided that the Castro district won’t define them. They’ve built their community in Oakland, on the other side of the bridge, a city with a Black identity.
In the end, their resilience speaks volumes. While the Castro district may remain a symbol of exclusion for some, Oakland has become their refuge — a space where they can be unapologetically themselves, unburdened by the weight of others’ expectations. There, in the heart of a Black community, they thrive, not just surviving but forging their own path toward authenticity and belonging.
