Module F Compton's Cafeteria Riots

Compton's Cafeteria was a diner located in the heart of San Francisco's tenderloin district at 101 Taylor Street. It was a popular restaurant frequented by drag queens and patrons of local gay bars who would go there to grab a bite to eat after the bars closed. The drag queens would come dressed in their various drag personas. The crowd included transgender people who were out for a night to live their lives as their true gender.

At the time, San Francisco, like all other big cities, still had on the books a law that prohibited dressing in clothing that was inconsistent with your sex assigned a birth. By 1966, police were only enforcing these laws in the transgender community at places like Compton's and they used this law to justify raiding Compton's Cafeteria one night in August of 1966.

The usual play included dragging the drag queens out in the street, sometimes beating them, but frequently booking them for public decency law violations and publishing their names and photos in the local newspaper. This kind of treatment would ruin a person who may not be "out" in any other parts of their lives.

Video

The story of Compton's may sound a lot like the one of Stonewall, but the news media didn't cover the story so no one really knew about it. The riot may not have been a large or as long, but it was a turning point in the relationship between police and the LGBTQ+ community in San Francisco. People stood up to the police and said, "no more." Watch this documentary to learn about what happened on that historic night in August of 1966. Pay attention to the images of law enforcement.