A San Francisco address that was once the site of a pre-Stonewall transgender uprising has been added to the National Register of Historic Places. The National Park Service added the building on Taylor St. in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood to its list of historic U.S. places worthy of preservation on January 27, without any public statement or press release, The Bay Area Reporter first reported. The address was the location of Compton’s Cafeteria in the 1960s.
One night in August 1966, a riot broke out at the all-night diner between its trans and queer patrons and police after a drag queen threw coffee at a cop who was trying to arrest her. There was property damage amid the protest against police harassment. In 2017, San Francisco designated an area in the Tenderloin the nation’s first transgender historic district. The site is likely the first landmark to be registered specifically for its connection to the history of the transgender community, and this 1966 protest occurred 3 years before Stonewall.
Liberation, empowering the marginalized, people finding their voice, and claiming their agency are all acts of holiness because they contribute to the experience of wholeness, and the Queer God Squad blesses the memories of the Compton Cafeteria freedom fighters. We celebrate this recognition of the site during this awful time when Trans people are being bullied by their own government. We don’t know how the site slipped under the radar, but hallelujah, it did.
