The Queerist

Description: Femina Potens is a non-profit arts gallery and performance space dedicated to the advancement of women and transgendered artists. First founded in 2001 by artistic director Tina Butcher and Madison Young, who recognized a need for greater visibility of women and transgendered artists and set out to create Femina Potens with no financial backing for the project, only a mission and a vision.

Femina Potens first started in a small garage space in the upper Haight in which the gallery gathered community support and quickly outgrew the small cement walls which confined their growing feminist position within the art scene.

By 2003 Femina Potens had found its way to an 800 sq ft gallery space in the San Francisco Mission District where the gallery flourished. In the four years between 2003 and 2007, Femina Potens produced nearly 300 art and cultural events for the LGBTQ, women, trans, queer and kink communities in San Francisco. Producing monthly spoken word open mic events, queer film screenings, music and dance events, and month visual art openings. Femina Potens has been recognized for its work in the community by Bitch Magazine, Curve Magazine, MTV's LOGO,Herbivore Magazine, Japan's FOIL Magazine, HERE TV, QTV, San Francisco Guardian, SF Weekly, SF Chronicle, Skin Two Magazine and more.

In 2007 Femina Potens moved into a 1300 sq ft store front space in the Castro District that had been inhabited for 25 years by Image Leather - a landmark in the Castro neighborhood.

Femina Potens has successfully brought the best women and transgendered artists to the community, coupling world-renowned visual and performing artists with talented new emerging artists. These multi-generational performances and exhibitions encourage newer artists to thrive while well-established artists and heroines stand on the same stage or placed on the same wall acting as mentors for fledglings.

Femina Potens has had the honor of presenting such luminaries as Judith Halberstam, Annie Sprinkle, Michelle Tea, Carol Queen, Diane Diprima, Charlie Anders, Thea Hillman, Lynn Breedlove, and Nina Hartley, and collaborating with organizations such as Ladyfest Bayarea, Fresh Meat Productions, United Genders of the Universe, BAVAC, Sex Workers Film and Art Festival, and The Center for Sex and Culture.

Femina Potens is always in need of more volunteers, artists looking for representation, venues looking for cutting edge artists, persons interested in starting workshops or discussion groups and additional individual donors.