Gay activist Tom Taylor dies — ‘ he could do anything’
Tom Taylor spent his whole life delighting people, whether through the giant Christmas displays he built outside his house in San Francisco’s Dolores Heights neighborhood, or the rainbow flag he tended in Harvey Milk Plaza.
The veteran LGBTQ activist died Oct. 20 after a bout with prostate cancer. He was 77.
Growing up in Richmond, Taylor was virtually inseparable from his four siblings, all of them born within a span of six years. He was an Eagle Scout who appreciated art and beauty. Since his mother detested ironing, Taylor would prepare his sisters’ Easter dresses each year, making sure “we were gorgeous little girls,” his sister, Barbara Taylor Andreozzi recalled.
After graduating from Richmond Union High School Taylor left home to pursue a career as a hair stylist. His parents initially disapproved when he came out as gay, and they remained estranged from Taylor for about a year before learning to accept his identity. Taylor, meanwhile, became a fervent activist, hoping to spare other LGBTQ kids from discrimination and rejection.
He soared in the industrial arts, eventually moving from hairdressing to do lighting for strip clubs and stage productions. At one point, Andreozzi said, he helped fix some technical problems in the Haunted House at Disney Land.
Taylor was told to brace for death in 1983, when he was diagnosed with HIV. Sensing that time was running out, he and his husband, Jerome “Jerry” Goldstein, took a trip around the world and hosted an epic Christmas party. They ate well, kept family members close, found ways to exult in everyday life.
But AIDS wasn’t a death sentence for Taylor. Instead, he lived for decades, splashing his artistic talents and eccentric personality on the city, but also watching helplessly as friend after friend succumbed to what was then a mysterious disease.
“We got to experience the early days of gay liberation, when it seemed like anything was possible and it was the most romantic adventure you could be invited to,” said fellow activist Cleve Jones, a close friend of Taylor.
But when AIDS swept through the community it killed thousands, leaving survivors to struggle, often in isolation, with chronic health conditions and relentless pain.
“Some people were very badly hurt by the experience,” Jones said. “And some of us just turned out to be tough as nails.”
Jones paused a beat. “Tom was tough as nails.”
Taylor was perhaps most famous for the “Tom and Jerry house” that he shared with Goldstein at 21st and Sanchez streets. Every year they decorated it with a towering Christmas tree, moving Ferris wheels, big stuffed animals, a train set and two stockings with “Tom” and “Jerry” in glittering letters.
The sprawling set dwarfed their white, gabled house, filling the driveway and drawing onlookers who lingered on the sidewalk, taking selfies.
It was just one of Taylor’s many contributions to the city. He and Goldstein also hosted charity events and served overwhelming feasts to hundreds of people. Taylor maintained and repaired the sacred Harvey Milk Plaza flag, replacing it when it got tattered.
He reminded people to never lower the flag to half mast, Jones recalled, because it might hit the Muni line.
“It was like he was some sort of crazy gay engineer,” Jones said. “He could do anything, really. He could fix your HVAC system or make you a ball gown.”
Bevan Dufty, a former Castro district supervisor who now serves on BART’s Board of Directors, is working with current Supervisor Rafael Mandelman to install a plaque at the base of the flagpole. It would commemorate Taylor and his longtime friend Gilbert Baker, the artist who designed the rainbow flag in 1978.
Baker and Taylor shared a warehouse in SoMa, where they would toil away at projects. They were civic treasures who never quite got their due, Mandelman said — beloved by an older generation, but largely unknown to tourists who visit Castro and Market streets, and gaze up at a billowing rainbow.
“Tom did so much to burnish the identity of the Castro and spread love and joy to everyone,” Dufty said.
Andreozzi said she drew two lessons from her brother. First: Be yourself. Second: When you fall in love with a place, try to make it better.
Tom Taylor is survived by his husband, Jerome Goldstein, two brothers and two sisters, three nieces, three nephews, and numerous grandnieces and nephews. A public service and celebration of his life will be announced in the near future.