5th Birthday Bash

Susan Stryker, the leading trans scholar and founding figure of transgender studies, explores what gender actually means—and why it matters. Drawing from her lifetime as a historian, filmmaker, and activist, Stryker traces gender from its grammatical origins through the culture wars to today's anti-trans backlash, finding surprising connections from "Yankee Doodle" to Joshua Tree acid trips to nineteenth-century phrenology. This is a conversation for our fraught moment: poignant, deeply researched, and ultimately about what it means to change reality itself. In conversation with Toshio Meronek.

A monthly gathering for trans folks to read, color, and just exist together in good company. Every third Monday at Fabulosa Books in the Castro, you'll find a rotating selection of trans literature, coloring supplies, snacks, and a room full of people who get it. September's pick is Miss Major Speaks: Conversations with a Black Trans Revolutionary—a powerful memoir from a Stonewall veteran and legendary activist. Get 10% off your book when you mention the club at checkout.

Jim Cartwright reads from his lyrical biography in verse about Harry Hay, the visionary who asked "Who are we?" decades before Stonewall and helped found the Mattachine Foundation—the first enduring gay rights organization in America. This is the story of a bullied boy who became a radical thinker, wrestling with politics, love, and belonging while imagining gay people not as broken individuals but as a cultural minority with unique gifts. Free admission; $10 suggested donation supports the bookstore.