The fight to protect a trans landmark in California from ICE’s biggest contractor
Compton’s Cafe is one of the earliest examples of LGBTQ+ resistance. Today, a prison company occupies the site One of the earliest documented examples of LGBTQ+ resistance against police happened on a hot summer night 60 years ago this month. It started not with the throwing of a brick, as it did in New York City’s 1969 Stonewall riots, but with the throwing of a coffee cup inside Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco. When police attempted to raid Compton’s – a hub for the drag performers, trans people and sex workers in the city’s Tenderloin neighborhood – hundreds of people in the community fought back. A drag queen threw a coffee mug at a police officer; others threw dishes and chairs outside. It was the culmination of years of police harassment, arrests and violence against the community and the beginning of the city’s trans movement. Continue reading...
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