A watershed moment for trans rights came on a summer night in 1966, when a group of trans women, drag queens and sex workers rioted against police harassment in the Tenderloin. The Compton’s Cafeteria riot signified a shift in the LGBTQ+ rights movement, kindling its flame right here in San Francisco — nearly three full years before the Stonewall riots in New York City. Cartoonist Justin Hall’s illustrated retelling of the night shows the bravery and resilience of a community standing up to oppression with a united front.
Though trans people had risked their lives fighting for LGBTQ+ rights, in the 1970s gay and lesbian activists sought to oust them from the movement. As Veronica Esposito explains, as the gay community sought mainstream acceptance, it betrayed its trans siblings by banning trans people from San Francisco Pride and booing Stonewall survivor Sylvia Rivera off a New York stage. Meanwhile, some feminists wanted to kick trans women out of women’s spaces, ostensibly in the name of liberation.
Nastia Voynovskaya interviews Sandy Stone, an 88-year-old audio engineer and professor who survived a coordinated harassment campaign that sought to exile her from the women’s music scene. Her story demonstrates how trans-exclusionary radical feminists created a playbook that conservative politicians and judges would embrace 50 years later to power a tidal wave of anti-trans legislation. Despite exclusion within and outside the queer community, trans people have always found ways to form life-saving networks of support.
Author Caro De Robertis collected oral histories from elders such as Ms. Billie Cooper, who has fought for civil rights since the Vietnam War; Ms. Billie’s mentor is Stonewall survivor and trans icon Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, who has spent her life advocating alongside incarcerated trans women. You’ll find these testimonies in an excerpt from Caro’s new book, So Many Stars: An Oral History of Trans, Nonbinary, Genderqueer and Two-Spirit People of Color. As the AIDS epidemic raged on in the ’80s and ’90s, artists and activists like singer Teresita La Campesina and drag performers Adela Vázquez and Hector León — aka La Condonera — used their creativity to break down shame and open conversations about sexual safety in the Mission District.
Carlos Cabrera-Lomelí illuminates their work with and alongside the organization Proyecto ContraSIDA Por Vida, a model for culturally informed outreach that still shapes public health efforts in the Latinx community today. Meanwhile, Sarah Hotchkiss helps us remember Christopher Lee, the rebellious filmmaker who created an essential platform for trans stories for and by the community: the San Francisco Transgender Film Festival. Finally, Shannon Faulise interviews the organizers of San Francisco’s Two-Spirit Powwow, the largest Indigiqueer gathering in the country.
As today’s Native people define Two-Spirit identity for themselves, they reclaim a longstanding history of gender diversity in the Americas. It’s our wish that documenting these histories and amplifying trans voices can provide hope during an otherwise somber Pride month, marked by policies that undermine the personal freedoms of not only trans and queer people, but all Americans. In moments like this, it is crucial to reflect on the perseverance of our LGBTQ+ elders and learn from their struggles.
Trans and queer people have existed for thousands of years; ironically, the conservative extremist ideology that antagonizes our community is a recent development. LGBTQ+ Americans are asking to be respected and treated equally, while a serious epidemic of hatred and scorn, encouraged by conservative leaders, denies a reality of the human experience.
