For the first time, the city of Oakland will have an LGBTQ cultural district for Pride Month.
In November 2023, the City Council passed a resolution to make the Lakeshore area a safe haven for people in the gay community.
Jeffrey Myers, commission chair of the Lakeshore LGBTQ Cultural District, said he knew this area was special when he first visited.
“Oh my god, all these gays, this is gay heaven,” Myers said.
Myers moved to the Bay Area nearly two decades ago after years of feeling unsafe being himself.
“I’m from the south where I’m from — Charleston, South Carolina — and I didn’t feel accepted,” Myers said of his hometown. “I was in the military, so I didn’t come out until I really started believing in myself and feeling like I could really be myself. But it took years to get to where I am now.”
Myers believes that making this area more welcoming to people in the queer community could have a life-saving impact, and he’s not alone. Commission member and Chief Operations Officer of Oakland’s LGBTQ Community Center, located in the heart of the Lakeshore area, Dawn Edwards shares his sentiment.
“Families, individuals and young people know that there is a safe place, a welcoming place that they can go to, where they can get care and good food and where they know that people will welcome them without prejudice,” Edwards said.
About a year ago, the committee presented the idea of a Cultural District to the city council.
“The city council believed in us, the city believed in us, the community believed in us,” Myers said of the support.
The effort was met with no opposition. But Myers said he knows LGBTQ people around the world are on the receiving end of a lot of hostility, which is why areas like the Lakeshore District remain so important.
‘We must have a safe place for children and transgender people [people] and seniors can feel safe, hold hands and feel like they belong,” Myers said.
Myers hopes that in the future, the Lakeshore area will be as important to the LGBTQ+ community as The Castro. He wants the area to become a haven for the community.
