{"id":478003,"date":"2026-09-28T05:22:18","date_gmt":"2026-09-28T05:22:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/478003\/"},"modified":"2026-09-28T05:22:18","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T05:22:18","slug":"thousands-pack-san-franciscos-folsom-street-fair-for-a-day-of-unapologetic-expression","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/478003\/","title":{"rendered":"Thousands pack San Francisco’s Folsom Street Fair for a day of unapologetic expression"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than a dozen blocks of San Francisco’s SoMa neighborhood<\/a> on Sunday were full of the uninhibited, joyful expression of kink and leather culture that’s defined the city’s Folsom Street Fair<\/a> since 1984.<\/p>\n

Throngs of people wearing leather, chains, chaps, hoods and spiked collars (or many with no clothing at all) attended what’s become the world’s largest event devoted to kink, leather and fetish communities.<\/p>\n

People attached by leashes led each other through the crowds or perused one of the many vendors selling leather clothing, whips, jewelry or printed kink “field guides.” Others crowded around live performances: drag shows on a stage hosted by historic gay bar the Stud, pole dancing, a bondage stage, queer wrestling and a group of people in various states of undress playing Twister.<\/p>\n

The fair is the culminating event of Leather Week, multiple days of parties, talks from sex educators and BDSM practitioners and a Mr. Leather contest. Every year, the Folsom Street Fair takes over 16 blocks of Folsom Street and many side streets; organizers estimate as many as 400,000 people attend from around the world.<\/p>\n

\"Ron,<\/p>\n

Ron, left, and Robin (last names not given) watch a performance during the Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco on Sunday. (Minh Connors\/For the S.F. Chronicle)<\/p>\n

Taylor Miller and Jules Gladwell flew from Columbus, Ohio, to attend this year’s fair. While Columbus is a queer-friendly city, Miller said it feels like queer culture there is largely “kept indoors” and out of the public eye. San Francisco, meanwhile, is home to the Folsom Street Fair: a publicly permitted event that shuts down a major thoroughfare in what the city has recognized as a historic Leather & LGBTQ Cultural District.<\/p>\n

“I’m a very sex positive person and this is about as sex positive as you can get,” Gladwell said. “I’m taking a moment to bask in the kinky queerness. I feel very safe here.”<\/p>\n

It was Gladwell’s first time at the fair. They said they were especially excited to express themselves via a carefully chosen outfit, including a pale pink harness that they previously had only worn in private. “I could wear this and feel safe – that has been really moving,” they said.<\/p>\n

Nearby, Tommy Netzband, a 30-year resident of San Francisco, and his sister, Barbara Schnee, who recently moved to California from Illinois, were reminiscing about Folsom Street Fairs they’ve attended over the last 15 years: the year Schnee took a spin in the whipping booth, or when a man from Germany with two dogs – “human dogs,” Schnee clarifies – wanted to take a picture with her. “It was great,” she said. Schnee often attended the Folsom Street Fair with her late husband; the event helped her more fully express this part of her identity.<\/p>\n

\"People<\/p>\n

People enjoy the festivities during the Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco on Sunday. (Minh Connors\/For the S.F. Chronicle)<\/p>\n

Decades ago, Netzband said, the fair was largely attended by gay men. “It’s gotten a lot more straight people over the years \u2026 with BDSM becoming so mainstream,” he said. “I don’t mind. As a city we want to be inclusive. This is one of those fairs where you can truly be yourself and not feel guilty about it.”<\/p>\n

Community activists Kathleen Connell and Michael Valerio started the Folsom Street Fair in 1984 as part of an effort to protect the SoMa neighborhood, which had become a hub for gay bars, bathhouses and leather culture, from high-rise development and gentrification. They were inspired by how the late Harvey Milk had used the Castro Street Fair as an organizing tool and to promote gay-owned businesses.<\/p>\n

“As a neighborhood or place of work, South of Market magnetically attracts the pioneers, the changelings, the cutting edge of industry, arts, entertainment, human and social relationships,” the founders wrote in an invitation for the first fair in 1984. “Not too far behind the concrete facades, a pulsating, living mosaic-like community is alive and well. On September 23, Folsom will close to traffic and open its heart to the world.”<\/p>\n

\"Jasper<\/p>\n

Jasper Hoss, left, Traxx, center, and Rook walk down the street holding hands during the Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco on Sunday. (Minh Connors\/For the S.F. Chronicle)<\/p>\n

Beyond rallying against development, Connell and Paul Gabriel wrote in an article about the event’s history<\/a>, “it also had one other crucial overarching purpose – helping to fight for the survival of the LGBT communities South of Market – including leather – as the full realization of the onset of AIDS and its harrowing and devastating implications was reverberating throughout the city. The fair was to be a healing, celebratory response.”<\/p>\n

Over the ensuing decades, the Folsom Street Fair became a beacon for sexual freedom and expression, though the city would lose many of its leather and queer spaces, including Blow Buddies, an adult sex club that had operated since 1988 but closed in 2020<\/a>, the same year the city lost the Stud, San Francisco’s oldest gay bar<\/a>, though it reopened on Folsom Street four years later<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Netzband, who has been out as a gay man since he was 18 years old, said the Folsom Street Fair continues to feel like a “wonderful representation of San Francisco.”<\/p>\n

“You may see someone in a furry outfit or someone naked or someone who’s chained but once you talk to the people, these are human beings that love and hurt and bleed like everybody else,” he said. “Whether you’re old or young or fat or skinny, if you are gay, straight, bi, tri, pansexual – everybody is welcome here.”<\/p>\n

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