Cruisin’ The Castro…with Trevor Hailey
Local Historian Infuses Walking Tour With Facts, Fun, Frankness

by Jeanine K. Reisbig for the San Francisco Spectrum

Hurrying along Castro Street you may hear a velour and sandpaper, honeyed Southern contralto that splits to a higher octave in the excitement of storytelling. A cluster of attentive folks listens intently, and it is hard not to miss the center of their interest, a diminutive sturdy lesbian with close-cropped silver hair and engaging confidence. As everyone laughs with her, it’s hard not to stop and pay attention.

Meet Trevor Hailey, former Navy nurse, local historian and storyteller extraordinaire who after 15 years of conducting walking tours of San Francisco’s Castro District, has never met a stranger. But local residents, visitors from many states, as well as people from all over the world have been part of her walking tour, and she has appreciative stories from all of them. Infused in a creative blend as variations on a theme to her Castro tour standard stops and stories, the neighborhood our SF locals may take for granted gain new dimensions of wondrous luster and emotional patina as Trevor makes our gay history come alive every few feet.

Cruisin’ the Castro first began in 1989 as a two hour walk’ n’ talk, part of Trevor’s masters program at SF State Universities Recreation and Leisure Studies Department where she minored in San Francisco history. As lesbian ingenuity converged with her personal interests, education, mid-1980’s rise in gay travel and that industry’s awareness of our community’s discretionary income, Trevor is a dynamo in her wealth of tales and gay human-interest lore.

The current walk lasts four hours, and, as Trevor recounts testimonials from her guests of many years, Cruisin’ the Castro could last long enough to be a summer camp.

And part of Trevor’s tour is whittling down the negative effects of homophobia, one guest and one step at a time with hands on patience and grandmotherly warmth that counteracts much of mainstream media’s negative hype about gays. Keeping her walking tour small or medium sized means she gets lots of wonderful questions from her guests.

“Trevah, ah the pigeons in th’ Castro gayyy???” A bi-lingual French woman tourist, visiting San Francisco with her husband, inquires of Trevor during one walk. Warming to the question with patience and a smile, Trevor remembers her reply, “no, not that I know of, why do you ask?” It turns out that as there are so few pigeons in the Castro, the woman believes they may not procreate because of their sexual orientation. And, indeed, the Castro has fewer pigeons than many other parts of the City.

Many times Cruisin’ the Castro tours include gays from other parts of the US where it is harder to be out who discover new feelings of self validation after completing Trevor’s tour. Often, after her guests return home, she receives notes from them about how they came out at work and were accepted by everyone, or reduced their isolation by volunteering at their local Names Project.

Of two straight women who took part in Trevor’s tour while their husbands were attending a convention here, the one who was quite pregnant with her fourth baby said that as the chances of having a gay child grew, she was glad to have taken this walk as now, if any of her children turned out to be gay, she would be a more well informed mother and better parent to her children.

So, each of the Crusin’ the Castro walking tours is different, depending on the personalities of the guests and where they are from. Trevor meets each group at Harvey Milk Plaza, 400 Castro, and takes them on four-hour walk and lunch expedition that many SF residents would find fascinating. She combines factual but fun inter-weavings of San Francisco history beginning with the all-male 1849 Gold Rush, and how that “newness away from home” for those thousands of young men aged 17 to 25 translated into our city’s main characteristics of acceptance, playfulness and class These characteristics embody today’s San Francisco gay community and trickle down to the rest of our beautiful city.

Trevor’s stories and her enthusiasm are fabulous to listen to. The previously mentioned psychological/sociological influence on the influx of gays to SF’s Castro District as the fabled Haight Ashbury Summer of Love bloomed from it’s participants exploring their adolescence (something many gays could not do in their hometowns) faded into dishabille is lovingly recalled. Then, those who came here from that place and era to lovingly restore a failing neighborhood to a safe, fun, beautiful area that is a focus of SF Pride and magnet for gay people from everywhere to be themselves truly transformational.

Interspersed with Trevor’s history, stories, and patient answers to guests questions are stops at current Castro stores and institutions as well as where organizations and people that are important to our community were located. The storefronts that housed the AIDS Memorial Quilt and Harvey Milk’s Camera Store are interspersed with stops at Pink Triangle Park and Memorial, Noe Beaver Park, Nancy Boy, Castro Theatre, LYRIC, Most Holy Redeemer Parish, and Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy. The tour includes lunch at Firewood Café, where tour members are encouraged to tell their own stories.

Those new to or visiting San Francisco, as well as long time residents are always welcome at Crusin’ the Castro. Held Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10 AM to 2 PM in the spring, summer and fall, these walking tours have plenty for everyone interested in our history and a good time. For more information, contact Trevor Hailey at (415) 550-8110 or email her at trvrhailey@aol.com.

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