{"id":199281,"date":"2026-03-01T12:41:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T12:41:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/199281\/"},"modified":"2026-03-01T12:41:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T12:41:17","slug":"unsung-heroines-profiles-35-bay-area-women-you-need-to-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/199281\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Unsung Heroines\u2019 profiles 35 Bay Area women you need to know"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Comic<\/a><\/p>\n

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Before local transgender activists Sylvia Rivera and Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, there was Louise Lawrence.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Born in 1912, Lawrence<\/a> began living as a woman in 1942 in Berkeley, California. Soon after, she moved to San Francisco, where she educated doctors at the University of California, San Francisco, about transgender people and their health. While there, she met Dr. Alfred Kinsey and helped shape his 1953 landmark study of female sexuality<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Lawrence also founded Transvestia<\/a>, an independent newspaper to raise awareness of transgender issues and connect the wider trans community, in 1952.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Mission<\/p>\n

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\"BlackLouise Lawrence. Illustration by Adrienne Simms.<\/p>\n

Lawrence\u2019s story is one of the riveting biographies in \u201cUnsung Heroes: 35 Women Who Changed the Bay Area,\u201d a new book<\/a> by KQED reporter and producer Rae Alexandra<\/a>, out March 17 with City Lights Publishers. To celebrate, Alexandra is hosting two nights of her popular Rebel Girls Bingo event on March 11 and 12.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cUnsung Heroes\u201d was born out of an idea: Alexandra would profile five women from San Francisco Bay Area\u2019s past for Women\u2019s History Month in 2018.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI got really angry about the underrepresentation of women in public spaces in San Francisco,\u201d Alexandra said. \u201cI was complaining about it constantly, to passengers on Muni and to people in bars. And then I realized: I write for a living.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among those first profiles were Black Oakland Tribune journalist Delilah L. Beasley<\/a>, San Jose housing and civil rights activist Sof\u00eda Mendoza<\/a>, and Tsuyako \u201cSox\u201d Kataoka<\/a>, who fought for reparations for Japanese Americans imprisoned in California concentration camps during World War II. Alexandra dubbed them \u201cRebel Girls<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their stories are included in \u201cUnsung Heroes,\u201d an approachable volume that\u2019s aimed at getting teens interested in history. After writing those first five articles, Alexandra found herself irresistibly interested, too.<\/p>\n

She became especially \u201cobsessive\u201d early in the pandemic, when she began ordering obscure books on Bay Area history. She pored through their indexes to look for women she hadn\u2019t heard of before.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was exciting to find a woman you really fall in love with and you can\u2019t believe we don\u2019t know about them,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rebel girl in the making<\/p>\n

One could make a case for adding Alexandra to the book. Born in Wales, she was living in London when she began traveling to San Francisco in the 1990s and fell in love with the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it was Nirvana,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was full of punks and excellent vegan food and progressive politics.\u201d<\/p>\n

After graduating from university in Wales, Alexandra worked for Kerrang!<\/a> magazine in London, writing about the punk scene. But she eventually burned out, partly because of the male-dominated culture at the magazine and in the scene she was writing about. When her boyfriend moved to San Francisco in the early 2000s, she went with him.<\/p>\n

She wrote for many years for SF Weekly<\/a>, then moved to KQED\u2019s pop culture desk in the mid-2010s. Since then, she\u2019s written about the local arts scene<\/a> as well as weird history<\/a> (including some of this writer\u2019s work<\/a>), Claude<\/a> the albino alligator, the Zodiac killer<\/a>, and the composition of coyote poop<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But the Rebel Girls project expanded in ways Alexandra didn\u2019t expect.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Book<\/p>\n

She began recording brief radio spots profiling different women in history, and then launched the Rebel Girls bingo nights in March 2022. Alexandra read aloud about an historical figure chosen by contestants among nine candidates.<\/p>\n

Players went home with zines featuring each event\u2019s nine selections. Alexandra took any leftover zines to local bookstores and cafes. One day, she turned up at City Lights to discover that their zine shelf had been taken down. A staffer told her to put the zines on the stairs. She hesitated, but left a few.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It was a lucky decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose stairs go up to the poetry room, but also the publisher\u2019s office. They saw the zines and called me and asked if I wanted to turn them into a book,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Making friends with history<\/p>\n

\u201cUnsung Heroes\u201d is illustrated with sketches by San Francisco artist Adrienne Simms<\/a>, who swims daily at the same pool as City Lights publisher Elaine Katzenberger.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Her portraits of these women are framed with details particular to each subject, such as a compass and rope for Arctic explorer Louise Arner Boyd<\/a>, and a bounty of fresh produce for famed blind Mexican chef Elena Zelayeta<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Simms\u2019 portrait of Ruth Brinker<\/a>, who headquartered Project Open Hand in the Mission District after the nonprofit feeding AIDS patients outgrew its previous home, is framed by an HIV\/AIDS awareness ribbon.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Over the course of writing these essays, Alexandra said she felt like she became friends with each of the women she profiled.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a rule: I didn\u2019t start writing until I felt like I was friends with a woman. It was like, if I\u2019m taking them to a dinner party, would I be able to tell my friends about her before she arrived?\u201d Alexandra said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She was surprised by certain stories, like Zelayeta\u2019s decision to continue cooking \u2014 even on television \u2014 after she lost her vision. Or Charlotte L. Brown<\/a>, who sued San Francisco\u2019s public transportation company to end racial segregation in 1863, years before slavery officially ended.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"BlackElena Zelayeta. Illustration by Adrienne Simms.<\/p>\n

Alexandra is also especially fond of lab technician Pat Maginnis<\/a>, who opened a clinic in 1968 to support women who\u2019d undergone illegal abortions. Maginnis was an abortion-rights activist starting in the early 1960s, and a force to be reckoned with.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI really loved this woman, but she\u2019s someone I would be scared to take to a dinner party,\u201d Alexandra said. \u201cShe was a handful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Alexandra still loves San Francisco, she never found much of her native Welsh culture here, aside from Dylan\u2019s Welsh Pub<\/a> at 19th and Folsom streets, now The Homestead<\/a> bar. That changed when the writer moved to Stockton a few years ago. The first time she dropped by a Home Depot in Stockton, a young employee immediately clocked her as Welsh.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I moved to San Francisco, I used to wear a necklace of the UK because I got tired of drawing maps on napkins for people,\u201d she said. In Stockton, \u201cEveryone\u2019s friendly and chatty. It\u2019s very Welsh, to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rebel Girls Bingo takes place Wednesday, March 11, and Thursday, March 12, at 7 p.m. at KQED Headquarters, 2601 Mariposa St., San Francisco. Purchase tickets for March 11 here<\/a> and for March 12 here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In addition, City Lights will host a book launch for \u201cUnsung Heroines\u201d on Thursday, March 5 at 7 p.m., in person and on Zoom. Details and registration here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

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