Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton's Cafeteria

This wonderful hour-long documentary is about events leading up to, during, and after the Compton's Cafeteria riot, which took place in San Francisco.

The film clips from mid-to-late-1960's San Francisco struck home with me--- Although I was living in NYC at the time, I endured arrests, hundreds of police raids, --and of course riots-- from the 5-day Stonewall mêlée to the bloody, albeit less well-know, 'Snake Pit' riots that followed Stonewall by less than a year, yet were in the same vicinity (on Christopher Street, plus outside the 6th precinct on Charles Street, and even extending down West 8th Street).

As I watched this documentary about San Francisco, I saw several pieces of very familiar stock footage pieced in,-- including a few shots from the first annual GLF-sponsored gay march in NYC (June 1970).

It was in one of those film clips, there, up on the screen, that I suddenly saw my roommate from 1970, Billy Weaver, AND ME, carrying the biggest and most political banner in that march.-- We painted it on a large bed sheet on our living room floor (and the paint went right through the cloth, forever marking our hardwood floor with: "SMASH SEXISM" in large letters, and underneath that slogan, "GAYS UNITE NOW" in only slightly smaller letters.

Because it was the boldest statement during the march (and, by far, the biggest banner-), it was a magnet for everyone with a camera that day-- including all members of the media.

This is not the first documentary film I've seen in which I suddenly appear with Billy, the two of us marching and holding up that enormous banner (which we had stapled to tall cardboard tubes which each of us held-- the police would NOT allow us to use wooden poles for our banner....)

FYI: That first march was not called a 'Gay Pride March' or anything even close;-- It was called "The Christopher Street Liberation Day March," being named after the 6-man committee (-I was one of the six-) called 'The Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee.'

Our 6-man group was a cell within GLF (the Gay Liberation Front-- of which I was an original member), and we formed that cell within GLF for the express purpose of lobbying the city to allow us to hold a march to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, AND to make sure it was observed every June thereafter.

After seeing this film, I had to wonder a bit about why a documentary telling of an event from the 1960s contained news-footage from June of 1970. It was, of course to illustrate that what happened at Compton was, indirectly, linked to later events.... .....something that is still true today.

--D.--

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This 57 minute documentary is a little known slice of LGBT history and more importantly with a stress on the T. The T for Transgender. The film focuses on what life was like for this community as they tried to carve out an existence in the Tenderloin neighborhood of 1960s San Francisco. It's thanks to documentaries like these that LGBT history is being recognized. The film is well put together with archive images plus recreations of pivotal moments in the story of the riot. The interviews are particularly touching. Straight to camera heartfelt recollections from trans-gender women about their struggle to be accepted, their need to sell themselves simply to survive and the police brutality of the era. Recommended. And as for a previous reviewer thinking this is part of some gay agenda...well to be honest, who cares. The trans-gender director of the film deserves our thanks and praise for putting together an informative and entertaining slice of LGBT history. Well done!

It's a hot August night in San Francisco in 1966. Compton's Cafeteria, in the seedy Tenderloin district, is hopping with its usual assortment of transgender people, young street hustlers, and down-and-out regulars. The management, annoyed by the noisy crowd at one table, calls the police. When a surly cop, accustomed to manhandling Compton's clientele, attempts to arrest one of the queens, she throws her coffee in his face. Mayhem erupts -- windows break, furniture flies through the air. Police reinforcements arrive, and the fighting spills into the street. For the first time, the drag queens band together to fight back, getting the better of the cops, whom they kick and stomp with their high-heeled shoes and beat with their heavy purses. For everyone at Compton's that night, one thing was certain -- things would never be the same again.

Screaming Queens introduces viewers to a diverse cast of former prostitutes, drag entertainers, police officers, ministers and neighborhood activists, all of whom played a part in the events leading up to the Compton's Cafeteria riot. Mixing recent interviews with archival footage, printed documents, impressionistic reenactments and period music, the program depicts a marginalized community few people know, one that exists in the midst of a city famous for its cosmopolitan glamour. With extraordinary candor and from differing points of view, the subjects recount the difficulties they encountered in the Tenderloin, as well as the sense of community they created there in the mid-1960s. Felicia Elizondo tells of prostituting herself in order to survive. Aleshia Brevard, a drag entertainer, describes how her talent spared her from street prostitution. Perhaps most surprising is Sgt. Elliot Blackstone, who helps explain the conflict between the San Francisco Police Department and the city's transgender community and how the SFPD's policies changed to reflect greater acceptance in the years following the 1966 riot.

The documentary goes on to show the connection between transgender activism and the larger social upheavals affecting the United States in the 1960s: the civil rights and sexual liberation movements, the youth counterculture, urban renewal, and Great Society antipoverty programs. "Glide Memorial Methodist Church first reached out to the transgender community in these years," the Rev. Ed Hansen explains, "because of new thinking about the church's role in society." Amanda St. Jaymes and Tamara Ching, both transsexual activists and former prostitutes, recount the ferment in the Tenderloin in the 1960s as well as the growing sense of dignity among transgender people. But in the summer of 1966, many others, including most San Francisco police officers, did not share these new ideas. By bringing these social and political tensions to light, Screaming Queens offers viewers a fuller understanding of the events and conditions that led up to the riot.

Further, Screaming Queens explores the reverberations, both large and small, of the rise of transgender activism, a story in which the riot at Compton's Cafeteria plays a pivotal role. Sgt. Blackstone tells of singing "We Shall Overcome" with Tenderloin activists who successfully fought for new social services for their community. Suzie Cooke recounts her job as a transsexual counselor in one of the new agencies founded after the riot. Ching connects the Tenderloin transsexuals' new activism to the rising Gay liberation movement. And St. Jaymes explains that although the queens from Compton's were "wild as the wind," they were "determined to make something of themselves, and be something other than prostitutes." The film ends on a high note. It shows how in just two short years transgender activism helped transform San Francisco culture in subtle and profound ways and presents reflective comments from the Compton's Cafeteria subjects who bravely ushered in a controversial revolution that continues today.

Screaming Queens sets out to foster a better understanding of the experiences of transgender people and to inform a broad audience of their often-difficult lives and unheralded accomplishments. Along the way, the program also illuminates the interplay of urban politics, community mobilization and social services in creating the modern inner city.

This important documentary tells a forgotten San Francisco story of dramatic social change from the compelling perspective of firsthand participants. The film's story focuses on the experiences of the rioters themselves, the police and the social-activist clergy members. It also follows historian Susan Stryker's rediscovery of the 1966 disturbance at Compton's Cafeteria. At that time, transgender people faced serious employment discrimination, police harassment and other difficulties. The program's subjects describe the challenging circumstances and the misconduct of officials that drove them to take militant action in the streets. Screaming Queens then examines the significant changes -- in police practices, social services and self-image -- that came out of the conflict. In her story within the story, Stryker reveals how the Compton's Cafeteria riot, although not as large as New York's Stonewall conflict, was a dramatic turning point in a decades-long process of transgender community formation and political mobilization in San Francisco, a process that involved dramatic changes in medical practices, urban politics, neighborhood geography and public consciousness.

Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton's Cafeteria is produced in association with The Independent Television Service (ITVS) and KQED Public Television.