In 2005, Susan Stryker shed light on this moment with her documentary, “ Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton’s Cafeteria. (Photo courtesy of Wikipedia)Īlthough the conflict at Compton’s was mostly ignored by the media, including publications run by the nascent gay community, 1966 would prove a major turning point in the battle for transgender civil rights, a year when cultural shifts aligned to begin improving the trans community’s access to health care and its relationship with law enforcement. Susan Stryker speaks at the San Francisco Trans March in 2017. Three years before the Stonewall riots in New York City, which most Americans consider the watershed moment for gay rights, transgender citizens of San Francisco took to the streets to demand better treatment and to hold their harassers accountable. While police waited for backup, customers tore the cafeteria apart, and the riot spread onto nearby Turk and Taylor streets, damaging a police car and burning a newspaper stand to the ground. The all-night restaurant in the city’s impoverished Tenderloin neighborhood was an unwilling haven for queer residents, and after its management called law enforcement to remove a noisy table of diners, patrons frustrated with the constant profiling and police harassment started throwing plates, cups, trays, and silverware at the officers.
The queens had finally had enough: In August 1966 - 54 years ago this month -transgender and gender-nonconforming customers at Gene Compton’s Cafeteria stood up to years of abusive, discriminatory treatment by the San Francisco police.
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