(Transcript of presentation by Professor Pride/ Powered by Rainbow _ linked below)
Drag Queens and Trans Women Are Our Heroes
And Deserve Respect
In the early 1960s,
the Tenderloin neighbourhood of
San Francisco, CA started to function as a red light district.
This is where sex work, drugs and gambling became a massive part of the community.
And because of this, it functioned as a place where individuals living on the fringes of normal society found it easier to live. This includes members of the LGBTQ community.
Oftentimes, restaurants or bars in this district didn't call out to their patrons that they were closing for the night and ask them politely to leave.
The Gene Compton's Cafeteria
Instead, they called the police, because in those days it was illegal to be gay and against the law to dress in women's clothing because they didn't accept you for being transgender.
Though the exact date is not confirmed, in the early morning hours of an August day in 1966, many patrons were enjoying their meals and 60 cent cups of coffee at the local restaurant called Gene Compton’s Cafeteria.
This 24 hour eatery was centrally located in the district, right next to the hair Salon, a corner bar, and the local bath house, which was the commercial space that gay men used to have sex with other men, and this location made the restaurant a popular one in the community.
But the owners didn't like so many LGBTQ people being their patrons, so they regularly called the police to raid their building rather than politely asking everyone to leave.
And you might ask, why LGBTQ people still went there to eat?
But it was illegal to be LGBTQ across the whole country, and so it didn't really matter where they went to eat, or even go grocery shopping so they can eat at home, just being alive and trying to live as a normal person was against the rules, so the LGBTQ people had no choice but to go somewhere for coffee.
But on one night in August of 1966, three years before the Stonewall Riots, yet again, the police raided the Gene Compton’s cafeteria. Only this time, as one of the police officers grabbed a Drag Queen by the arm, she threw a cup of coffee in his face. Good for her!
This caused the entire cafeteria to erupt in a riot. People flipped tables, threw cutlery, sugar shakers crashed through the restaurant windows and doors, and Drag Queens swung heavy purses at the officers.
Outside the police were arresting dozens of people and loading them into paddy wagons as they fought back heroically.
The crowd that night trashed a cop car and set fire to a news stand.
After that night was over, it went largely unreported because police raids on an LGBTQ frequented restaurant, let alone one in a red light district, were all too common.
But even those in the LGBTQ (community) didn't really talk about the Compton Cafeteria riot, partly because they were so used to it happening too.
In fact, besides memories from police, patrons and eye witnesses that night, the only record which survived of the event into the present day is a short article by gay activists Raymond Broshrears
Later a woman by the name of Susan Stryker, who is a historian, found his article and decided to find many patrons, police and eyewitnesses, asking them to tell their story to her.
The Compton Cafeteria Riots were nearly as important as the Stonewall Riots, but without Susan Stryker and the article from Raymond Broshears, it would have been erased from history.
Screaming Queens
"It is almost impossible to imagine the constant humiliation that attended being LGBT back in those bad old days, when so many Americans— who thought of themselves as good people! —believed you and members of your despised community were repulsive deviants, pathetic at best, your rightful place in prison or in a mental institution.
The very notion of gay marriage, the idea of anti-discrimination legal protections, the inalienable right to dress as you pleased, to live as you pleased, would have been considered fantastical and ridiculous."
(...)
"On June 22nd, 2006, a historical marker on the site was erected. It reads:
“Gene Compton’s Cafeteria Riot 1966: Here marks the site of Gene Compton’s Cafeteria, where a riot took place one August night when transgender women and gay men stood up for their rights and fought against police brutality, poverty, oppression, and discrimination in the Tenderloin.
We, the transgender, gay, lesbian, and bisexual community, are dedicating this plaque to these heroes of our civil rights movement.”
by LYNN YAEGER for VOGUE, August 19, 2016
Comments