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Events
- Critical Mass. On the last Friday of each month, bicyclists (in San Francisco, and about 200 like-minded cities world-wide) gather at the north end of Market Street on the Embarcadero and ride en masse to some destination, militantly demonstrating their right to occupy the roads. If you are driving in SF on a Critical Mass day, you will want to listen for radio traffic reports, but if you are stopped by the mass the best thing to do is maintain a good sense of humor and remember that it will all pass in about 5 minutes. Although, tempers can and do flare, and there have been cases where run ins with drivers and bicyclists have gotten violent.
LGBT community events
San Francisco is famous for its exuberant and visible gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) community.
- The San Francisco Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Pride Parade and Celebration is one of the largest gay pride parades and festivals in North America. It's a huge, happy, chaotic celebration of diversity, politics, sexuality, and San Francisco wackiness, on the last weekend in June. It fills Market Street and some seven city blocks from there to City Hall. About a dozen stages and spaces offer everything from square dancing to hip-hop, from a family garden to Leather Alley. Hundreds of businesses, community groups, non-profits, and political groups attempt to connect with hundreds of thousands of celebrants. It's a movement, it's a market, it's a party. Both parade and celebration are for everyone — straight as well as gay are welcome. See San Francisco/Civic Center#Do.
- Pink Saturday is a street party in San Francisco/Castro Street|the Castro on the Saturday night before the Pride Parade and Celebration. See San Francisco/Castro Street#Do.
- Halloween in the Castro. Halloween, the holiday when everyone puts on a mask, has long been a special time for gay, lesbian and bisexual people to take off the "straight-looking mask" they sometimes wore all year, and be themselves. What remains today is a huge, sometimes poorly controlled, street party in the Castro on the evening of October 31st each year. See San Francisco/Castro Street#Do.
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