San Francisco Approves First Gay Bathhouse in Nearly 40 Years After 2020 Ban Repeal
Updated
Updated · The Washington Post · Nov 12
San Francisco Approves First Gay Bathhouse in Nearly 40 Years After 2020 Ban Repeal
3 articles · Updated · The Washington Post · Nov 12
Summary
San Francisco’s Planning Commission approved permits for Sanctum Baths, clearing the city’s first gay bathhouse since the AIDS epidemic and targeting an opening by the end of next year.
The project will convert a 7,516-square-foot, two-story commercial building in The Hub, next to the Leather & LGBTQ Cultural District, into a bathhouse and adult sex venue.
The approval follows the Board of Supervisors’ 2020 repeal of an AIDS-era ban that helped shut all legal bathhouses by 1987 after the city had as many as 20 at their 1982 peak.
Backers say modern HIV treatment has sharply reduced transmission risk and that restoring sex-positive spaces revives a part of San Francisco’s queer community life long stigmatized during the epidemic.