i first heard about the compton’s cafeteria riot when we watched Screaming Queens (2005, Susan Stryker) in one of my gender studies classes last semester. good movie.
“In August 1966, the hustlers, queens and street kids who gathered at Compton’s Cafeteria for an afterhours meal in San Francisco’s Tenderloin, revolted when the vice squad tried to arrest one of them. Throwing dinner plates at the police, smashing windows, burning down a newsstand and later picketing against management’s decision to refuse service to drag queens, this first “gay” riot was launched by sex workers.”
(via funkyfest)
