José Sarria, a drag performer and gay rights advocate who many historians contend was the first openly gay person to campaign for public office in the United States when he ran for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1961, died on Monday at his home in Los Ranchos de Albuquerque, N.M. He was 90.

The cause was adrenal cancer, said Gerard Koskovich, a friend and a spokesman for the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society.

Mr. Sarria worked as a waiter and performed at the Black Cat Cafe, a gay bar in the North Beach section of San Francisco, in the 1950s and ’60s. His campy satires of operas like “Carmen,” performed in elaborate regalia and makeup, made him a recognizable face in the city’s gay neighborhoods and a de facto community leader.

Laws against sodomy were in place throughout the United States at the time. In California, bars serving homosexuals could legally be raided and their patrons arrested.