![]() ![]() “People were throwing plates, cutlery and sugar shakers at the cops, and they smashed out the windows at the cafeteria,” she continued.Īlthough the event, which was later named the Compton Cafeteria riots, is not as widely known as Stonewall, Stryker characterized it as “a precursor to a bigger earthquake.” In that era, trans feminine women who dressed in what was considered women’s clothing were called drag queens or queens, she said. “The police tried to arrest one of the queens and they threw coffee in the cop’s face,” Stryker, who is currently the Barbara Lee distinguished chair in Women’s Leadership at Mills College, told CNN. This historic act of transgender resistance to the police, which happened three years before the Stonewall riots in 1969, was almost lost to history until Susan Stryker, an academic focused on LGBTQ issues, found a mention of the event in historical archives related to New York City’s 1972 Pride March memorializing Stonewall. While the ultimate reason for their arrests is unknown, police frequently arrested those who dressed in clothing “opposite” to their sex, which was a crime at the time. Fifty-five years ago this month, a group of transgender women in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco fought back against police as they arrested patrons at Compton’s Cafeteria, a go-to hangout for temporarily avoiding the harshest harassment, discrimination and physical violence they faced on the streets.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |