At its launch in December 1971 San Francisco's oldest LGBTQ Democratic Club operated with a "wink, wink" as being a political group for the city's LGBTQ community.
It was merely known as the Alice B. Toklas Memorial Democratic Club. Founder Jim Foster and the other 19 original members of the group chose the name of writer Gertrude Stein's partner as a code to protect their confidentiality.
As former club board member Nathan Purkiss noted in an online history he created of Alice, saying one was a "member of Alice" signaled you were LGBTQ in political circles without having to directly come out of the closet.
It would take until 1980 for the club, under the leadership of then-president Connie O'Conner, to update its name to the "Alice B.