Let's start our tour of LGBTQ+ history at the Las Memorias AIDS Monument in Lincoln Heights, just east of downtown LA. It's the country's first publicly funded AIDS monument that opened in 2004 to honor victims of HIV/AIDS. It consists of six murals that depict life with AIDS in the Latino community and two granite panels that honor the names of local residents who died from AIDS. (Note that the site is currently being renovated, but you can view the murals.)

This former Standard Oil Building used to be known as The Woman's Building. In the 1970s, three pioneering, trailblazing women founded the Feminist Studio Workshop, which became one of the first independent art schools for women in the country. The workshop became a thriving epicenter of the Los Angeles feminist and queer movement, pushing women's equality to the forefront through art, debate, and community. The Woman's Building also housed Sisterhood Bookstore and the Associated Women's Press.

Walk a few blocks south to find Los Angeles City Hall. The stairs and front lawn of this historic building have been the site for many LGBT rallies. One of the first major protests where people gathered at Los Angeles City Hall was in response to the 1978 Briggs Initiative, which aimed to bar LGBT people in California from teaching in public schools. Demonstrations were also common in the lead-up to the defeat of Prop 8 in 2008, clearing the way for marriage equality.

Head toward Pershing Square to find the Millennium Biltmore Hotel, a popular hangout for queer patrons in the early 20th century. The hotel hosted a psychiatrist conference in the 1970s which argued in favor of electroshock therapy as a "cure" for homosexuality. The Gay Liberation Front disrupted the gathering, forcing a dialogue between mental health professionals and the gay community. Their debate led to removing the classification of "homosexuality" as a mental health disorder 2 years later.

On the eve of February 11, 1967, hundreds of people gathered outside The Black Cat to protest against police brutality that targeted the bar’s LGBT patrons and queer spaces located elsewhere in the city. It was one of the first documented LGBT civil rights demonstrations in the country and served as a catalyst for New York City’s Stonewall Riots two years later. Although the original Black Cat eventually closed, a new restaurant reopened later under the same name.

LGBTQ media played a critical part early in the gay liberation movement by rallying voices and highlighting LGBTQ topics through news and storytelling. America's preeminent LGBTQ publication, The Advocate (formerly known as the newsletter Los Angeles Advocate), didn't operate from this location, but its founders, Bill Rand and Dick Michaels, used the printing facilities at the ABC television studios to print copies of The Advocate during its early years.

While on the ground in Los Feliz, take a hike up to Griffith Park. The park has been a popular hangout for LGBT people throughout the decades, but the park's merry-go-round also became the home for so-called "ay-Ins" in the early 1970s. Organized by the Gay Liberation Front, the Gay-ins encouraged thousands of LGBT people to join, come out of the closet, and socialize during weekend afternoons with music and speeches.

The ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives is the world's most expansive library on LGBTQ history. Its collection contains more than two million pieces of media and archived records, including books, film, video and audio recordings, photographs, artwork, clothing and costumes, and much more. Visit the library at USC for research or visit the ONE Gallery in West Hollywood with rotating (virtual) exhibits highlighting LGBT history.

Over in Mid-City, near Koreatown, find Union Night club, formerly known as Jewel's Catch One. Often called the "Studio 54 of the West Coast," the nightclub was one of the country's first Black discos. Jewel's Catch One was opened by Jewel Thais-Williams in 1973 with the intent "to be a place where everyone could come," according to Thais-Williams. It's a place that helped define queer LA culture in the late 1970s into the 1980s.

Heading from Mid-City to West Hollywood, drive by Paramount Studios, formerly RKO Studios. RKO was a leading motion picture company during Hollywood's Golden Age. Edythe Eyde, a secretary at RKO, launched America's first lesbian periodical from this location in 1947 under the pseudonym “Lisa Ben” (an anagram for “lesbian). Eyde typed Vice Versa magazine to provide a platform for poetry, essays, short stories, and other self-expression "within the bounds of good taste," according to her.

Our tour continues in West Hollywood's Plummer Park. Its Great Hall/Long Hall became a central hub in the fight against HIV/AIDS in the 1980s and 1990s. Grassroots organization ACT UP/LA organized community meetings here to schedule protests and rally volunteers. ACT UP took an activist, confrontational approach to fight against homophobia and in favor of easily accessible medical care for those living with HIV & AIDS. The group organized sit-ins, demonstrations, and other non-violent protests.

The Transgender Day of Remembrance Memorial Plaque was unveiled on November 20, the annual Transgender Day of Remembrance, 2009, following the fatal hate crime against Paula Ibarra earlier that year. The unveiling was the first major achievement from the newly installed Transgender Advisory Board of the City of West Hollywood. Shirley Bushnell, a member of the West Hollywood Transgender Task Force, and Chaz Bono were keynote speakers.

The City of West Hollywood established the Matthew Shepard Human Rights Triangle in 1999 in honor of the brutally murdered gay Wyomingian and others in the LGBT community who have been victims of hate crimes. This LGBT rights memorial is an official West Hollywood city marker and park. It's an enduring reminder that LGBT people globally continue to be victims of hate and violence.

Many places in LA are a reminder of the local community's response to the devastating AIDS crisis that started in the early 1980s. The City of West Hollywood and the Alliance for Housing and Healing teamed up in 1993 to establish the West Hollywood Memorial Walk to commemorate those who lost to the disease throughout the years. The tribute walk is located on Santa Monica Boulevard and runs between Fairfax Avenue and Doheny Drive. Along the route, a bronze memorial plaque in tribute can be found.

The civil rights movement of the 1960s inspired the establishment of the Gay Community Services Center. It was the first formal civil rights and community group in Los Angeles that provided advocacy and care for the LGBT community. Later renamed the Los Angeles LGBT Center, the organization was first located in an old Victorian house on Wilshire Boulevard. In 2019, the center opened its new Anita May Rosenstein Campus, which includes administrative offices, youth housing, and even a coffee shop.