Compton's cafeteria riot

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In August of 1966, the Compton's Cafeteria Riot occurred in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco. This incident was the first recorded transgender riot in United States history, preceding the more famous 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York City by three years. Compton's Cafeteria was one of the few places where transgendered people could congregate publicly in the city, being unwelcome in gay bars at that time. Since Cross-dressing was illegal at the time, police could use the presence of transgendered people in a bar as a pretext for making a raid and closing the bar down.

On the first night of the riot, the management of Compton's called the police when some transgendered customers became raucous. When a police officer accustomed to manhandling the Compton's clientele attempted to arrest one of the drag queens, she threw her coffee in his face. At that point, the riot had begun, dishes and furniture were thrown, destroyed, and the restaurant's plate-glass windows were smashed. Police called for reinforcements as the fighting spilled into the street, at that time a police car had all its windows broken out and a sidewalk newstand was burned down.

The next night, more transgendered people, hustlers, Tenderloin street people, as well as other members of the LGBT community joined in a picket of the cafeteria, which would not allow transgendered people back in. The demonstration ended with the newly installed plate-glass windows being smashed again.

1 Effects of the Riot
2 Background
3 Aftermath
4 External links

[edit] Effects of the Riot

The riot marked a turning point in the local LGBT movement. According to the online encyclopedia glbtq.com,[1]

In the aftermath of the riot at Compton's, a network of transgender social, psychological, and medical support services was established, which culminated in 1968 with the creation of the National Transsexual Counseling Unit, the first such peer-run support and advocacy organization in the world.

Serving as an overseer to the NTCU was Sergeant Elliott Blackstone, designated in 1962 as the first San Francisco Police Department liason to what was then called the "homophile community." [2]

[edit] Background

Many of the militant hustlers and street queens involved in the riot were members of Vanguard, the first known gay youth organization in the United States, which had been organized earlier that year with the help of radical ministers working with Glide Memorial Methodist Church, a center for progressive social activism in the Tenderloin for many years. A lesbian group of street people was also formed called the Street Orphans.

[edit] Aftermath

Although the riot was a turning point for the transgender community in San Francisco, for 40 years, it was an almost-forgotten incident until the 2005 film documentary Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton's Cafeteria recovered the story for today's audiences. On June 22, 2006, a memorial plaque was placed on the wall of the cafeteria, which is still in business. Sgt. Blackstone, who retired from the police department in 1975, was among those honored during the commemoration.