Compton’s Cafeteria Riot
1966
Seven years later and hundreds of miles away, a similar incident took place at Gene Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District. In August 1966, a cafeteria worker called the SFPD when customers became unruly. When a police officer attempted to arrest one trans woman, she threw a cup of hot coffee in his face. Within minutes, dishes were were flying, windows were being broken and a nearby newsstand was burned down.
The next night, gays, lesbians hustlers and trans people picketed Compton’s. But unlike Stonewall, the city of San Francisco responded by developing a network of trans-specific social, mental-health and medical services, which eventually led to the creation of the National Transsexual Counseling Unit in 1968.
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