Arts & Entertainment
Stonewall wasn’t the only LGBT riot
Lesser-known protests erupted in San Francisco
With the 50th anniversary of the June 1969 Stonewall riots in New York’s Greenwich Village taking place this weekend, the compelling story of how LGBT people fought back following the police raid on the Stonewall Inn gay bar will likely capture the attention this week of the LGBT community and its allies.
But those familiar with LGBT history point out that there were three other riots besides Stonewall in which LGBT people fought back against injustices by police, government officials, and society in general. All of them took place in San Francisco.
Compton’s Cafeteria Riot
One of them, known as the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot, took place in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood in August 1966, three years before Stonewall. Those familiar with it say it was led by LGBT people known then as drag queens and “cross dressers” but who today would be known to be transgender women.
Many of them hung out at the late night cafeteria, which operated as a restaurant.
According to an account by transgender historian Susan Stryker in her 2008 book “Transgender History,” the cafeteria’s trans customers and their gay male friends were frequently harassed by the cafeteria’s management and by police in the early and mid-1960s.
At the time, so-called “cross-dressing” was illegal in San Francisco, and police and local regulatory agencies often threatened to close bars or eateries like Compton’s for allowing such people to patronize their establishments.
Stryker reports in her book that the Compton’s Cafeteria riot was triggered when a police officer attempted to arrest a trans woman inside the cafeteria and she responded by throwing the coffee she was drinking in the officer’s face.
That act of defiance, coming on the heels of years of harassment by the police, prompted other trans people and their friends to “erupt,” Stryker wrote. People began to throw dishes and furniture and the cafeteria’s plate glass windows were smashed. When police reinforcements rushed to the scene the fighting spilled into the street, where people smashed the windows of a police car and set a sidewalk newsstand on fire.
Stryker, who also co-produced a documentary film on the riot called “Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton’s Cafeteria,” reports that more than a dozen people were taken away by police in paddy wagons that night.
She reported that on the next night more transgender people, sex workers, Tenderloin neighborhood “street people,” and LGBT people in general returned to the scene to picket Compton’s Cafeteria after learning the management had banned transgender people from going back to the establishment.
In what observers consider an important pre-Stonewall development for LGBT rights, trans and LGBT youth under the guidance of the progressive Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco formed a group that staged protests over the next year or two against police harassment of trans and gay youth in the Tenderloin area.
White Night Riots
What has become known as the White Night Riots erupted in San Francisco on May 21, 1979 hours after news broke that a jury had rejected prosecutors’ call for a first-degree murder conviction for the man who assassinated gay rights icon and San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk and the city’s pro-LGBT mayor George Moscone.
To the shock and horror of San Francisco’s large LGBT community and its allies, the jury instead convicted ex-police officer and former supervisor Dan White of voluntary manslaughter for the two killings, prompting a judge to sentence him to seven years and eight months in prison. With good behavior, he would be eligible for release after serving just five years.
Legal observers said the jury appeared to have been persuaded by the defense attorneys’ argument that White suffered from an impaired mental state due to depression and the excessive consumption of fast food, which later became known as the “Twinkie defense.”
Police and prosecutors said White shot Milk and Moscone on Nov. 27, 1978 multiple times in the head and body execution style with a handgun inside their offices at City Hall, which White entered through an unguarded door he knew about as a former supervisor.
According to accounts by the media and by longtime LGBT and AIDS activist Cleve Jones, who worked on Milk’s staff and who was present during the riots, the LGBT community responded to the news about White’s verdict by organizing a peaceful protest in the city’s largely gay Castro neighborhood.
What started with about 500 people quickly grew to 1,500 as the protesters marched through the streets and swelled to more than 5,000 as the crowed reached City Hall in what observers described as an angry mood that took on the air of a mob.
Media accounts say some in the crowd began to smash the windows and glass front doors of the City Hall building as several of Milk’s friends and longtime supporters attempted to hold the crowd back. Although police officials said later that the large number of police officers dispatched to the scene were directed to hold back the crowd, many officers waded into the crowd and attacked the protesters with nightsticks, inflaming what was already a volatile situation.
The police action prompted angry protesters to begin smashing the windows of police cars and setting them and other cars on fire by tossing lit matchbooks into the cars, causing the gas tanks to explode. At least a dozen police cars and eight other cars were destroyed that way before the rioting ended later in the evening.
Media reports said at least 61 police officers and an estimated 100 or more protesters or members of the public were hospitalized as a result of the rioting. Additional people were injured, media reports said, when a group of police officers disobeyed orders from the chief of police not to retaliate and raided a gay bar in the Castro neighborhood later in the evening.
Witnesses said the renegade officers, who placed tape over their nametags and badges, smashed the Elephant Walk bar’s windows and attacked its patrons for about 15 minutes. They then went out on the street and attacked others they believed to be gays who participated in the rioting.
Further LGBT organized protests took place in the following days that did not trigger violence. One of the later protests drew more than 20,000 people who assembled peacefully at Castro and Market Streets. The city’s then mayor, Dianne Feinstein, and gay Supervisor Harry Britt, who replaced Milk on the Board of Supervisors, vowed to take steps to protect the rights of LGBT people and curtail anti-LGBT violence.
AB 101 Veto Riot
The last of the three known other LGBT riots took place in San Francisco on Sept. 30, 1991. Similar to the White Night Riots, it was triggered by breaking news earlier that day.
Then-California Gov. Pete Wilson (R) vetoed a major gay rights bill approved by the state legislature known as Assembly Bill 101, which called for banning employment discrimination based on someone’s sexual orientation. Wilson initially suggested he would sign the legislation, but political observers said he changed his mind at the behest of his party’s religious right faction and other conservatives whose support he needed for his re-election bid.
Several thousand outraged LGBT activists and their supporters marched from the Castro district to a downtown state office building to protest Wilson’s veto. The crowd far outnumbered startled police officers, who were not expecting such a large turnout. According to media reports, a small number of protesters smashed the building’s first floor windows and door, entered the building and started a fire that was quickly extinguished by firefighters but which resulted in more than $150,000 in damages.
That same week about 2,000 angry LGBT protesters in Los Angeles marched from West Hollywood to the Los Angeles Museum of Art, where Wilson was attending an opening of an exhibition of Mexican art, according to the L.A. Times. The protesters stopped short of rioting but set a California state flag on fire and burned Wilson in effigy, the Times reported.
a&e features
Transmission DC breathes new life into a storied sound space
A fresh home for boundary-pushing culture on H Street
Late last year, phoenix-style, a fresh home for boundary-pushing culture arose on the H Street corridor. Transmission DC – a queer, trans, and POC-owned, operated, and centered community-focused venue – powered on in the former home to the Rock & Roll Hotel (famously, not a hotel, but very much rock & roll). Transmission (1353 H St., N.E.) arrives secure in its mandate – or even birthright – to provide a place to celebrate creativity and music through a lens of inclusivity and respect.
Transmission’s team brings experience, but also representation. Owners/partners Kabir Khanna (who is also programming director), Katii B, Ellie McDyre, and Kelli Kerrigan together previously managed 618 productions, a venue in Chinatown, crafting “some of D.C.’s freakiest parties, raves, and mosh pits” they note.
They packed up operations last fall to a space curated specifically for D.C.’s underground music and culture scene, building their efforts in Chinatown to bring in more fans in queer and POC circles.
Transmission, Khanna points out, is built on DIY values. In the music scene, DIY means that promoters and organizers – often disconnected from the mainstream and part of marginalized communities – build shows and programs collaboratively, but independently from institutions, supporting each other as smaller, independent venues close. Here, Transmission aims to ensure that those putting together these underground inclusive shows have a more permanent and stable home, can have access to resources, and can provide more sustainable income to artists. “We’re trying to get more people to support and enjoy the music, and also give artists and organizers within the DIY community more structure and a larger cut,” says Khanna.
Khanna also notes that Transmission operates “under the principles of safety, inclusivity, and respect.” McDyre added that even at venues that claim inclusivity, that statement might not take place in practice. We’re “not just pitting up a rainbow flag,” says McDyre, but as some of the owners are trans and POC, audiences can see themselves reflected at the top.
Much like the DIY nature of the music community, the Transmission owners brought a DIY ethos to turning around their space.
In March 2020 – the height of COVID lockdowns – Rock & Roll Hotel suddenly shuttered, though not due to the pandemic; instead, the venue claimed that decreasing sales and increasing competition led to the closure. For 14 years, it was the central spot for cheap beer and lesser-known and celebrated acts. The space stood vacant for more than five years, until Transmission turned the power back on.
“When we got into the space, it was effectively abandoned for years,” says Khanna. “There was a ton of mold, and paint primer covering all surfaces. It was nearly falling apart.” Khanna noted that many music venues like this one, regardless of how well it was maintained, “get the shit kicked out of it,” given the nature of shows. The team called in mold removal contractors, ripped up most of the floorboards, and started fresh.
Transmission’s first floor is styled as a stripped-down black box: the better to take in the music. “It’s minimal on purpose to act as a canvas for set design and music,” without a specific aesthetic, says Khanna. Moving upstairs, the second floor has been opened up, removing some walls, and now has a larger dance area than the first floor. Beyond the first two performance levels, and a holdover from Rock & Roll Hotel, is the rooftop. Though without a stage, the rooftop space is filled with murals splashed across the walls, with a full bar. Transmission’s current capacity is 496, but the team is looking to grow that number. Transmission will also leverage the full kitchen that Rock & Roll Hotel operated, bringing in Third Hand Kitchen to offer a variety of food, including vegan and vegetarian options.
Khanna pointed out an upcoming show reflective of Transmission’s inclusive ethos: Black Techo Matters on Feb. 27. The event is set to be “a dynamic, collaborative night of underground electronic music celebrating Black History Month.” Khanna says that techno came from Black music origins, and this event will celebrate this genesis with a host of artists, including DJ Stingray 313, Carlos Souffront, and Femanyst.
Movies
Moving doc ‘Come See Me’ is more than Oscar worthy
Poet Laureate Andrea Gibson, wife negotiate highs and lows of terminal illness
When Colorado Poet Laureate Andrea Gibson died from ovarian cancer in the summer of 2025, the news of their passing may have prompted an outpouring of grief from their thousands of followers on social media, but it was hardly a surprise.
That’s because Gibson – who had risen to both fame and acclaim in the early 2000s with intense live performances of their work that made them a “superstar” at Poetry Slam events – had been documenting their health journey on Instagram ever since receiving the diagnosis in 2021. During the process, they gained even more followers, who were drawn in by the reflections and explorations they shared in their daily posts. It was really a continuation, a natural evolution of their work, through which their personal life had always been laid bare, from the struggles with queer sexuality and gender they experienced in their youth to the messy relationships and painful breakups of their adult life; now, with precarious health prohibiting a return to the stage, they had found a new platform from which to express their inner experience, and their fans – not only the queer ones for whom their poetry and activism had become a touchstone, but the thousands more who came to know them through the deep shared humanity that exuded through their online presence – were there for it, every step of the way.
At the same time, and in that same spirit of sharing, there was another work in progress around Gibson: “Come See Me in the Good Light,” a film conceived by their friends Tig Notaro and Stef Willen and directed by seasoned documentarian Ryan White (“Ask Dr. Ruth”, “Good Night, Oppy”, “Pamela, a Love Story”), it was filmed throughout 2024, mostly at the Colorado home shared by Gibson and their wife, fellow poet Megan Falley, and debuted at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival before a release on Apple TV in November. Now, it’s nominated for an Academy Award.
Part life story, part career retrospective, and part chronicle of Gibson and Falley’s relationship as they negotiate the euphoric highs and heartbreaking lows of Gibson’s terminal illness together, it’s not a film to be approached without emotional courage; there’s a lot of pain to be vicariously endured, both emotional and physical, a lot of hopeful uplifts and a lot of crushing downfalls, a lot of spontaneous joy and a lot of sudden fear. There’s also a lot of love, which radiates not only from Gibson and Falley’s devotion and commitment to being there for each other, no matter what, but through the support and positivity they encounter from the extended community that surrounds them. From their circle of close friends, to the health care professionals that help them navigate the treatment and the difficult choices that go along with it, to the extended family represented by the community of fellow queer artists and poets who show up for Gibson when they make a triumphant return to the stage for a performance that everyone knows may well be their last, nobody treats this situation as a downer. Rather, it’s a cause to celebrate a remarkable life, to relish friendship and feelings, to simply be present and embrace the here and now together, as both witness and participant.
At the same time, White makes sure to use his film as a channel for Gibson’s artistry, expertly weaving a showcase for their poetic voice into the narrative of their survival. It becomes a vibrant testament to the raw power of their work, framing the poet as a seminal figure in a radical, feminist, genderqueer movement which gave voice to a generation seeking to break free from the constraints of a limited past and imagine a future beyond its boundaries. Even in a world where queer existence has become – yet again – increasingly perilous in the face of systemically-stoked bigotry and bullying, it’s a blend that stresses resilience and self-empowerment over tragedy and victimhood, and it’s more than enough to help us find the aforementioned emotional courage necessary to turn what is ultimately a meditation on dying into a validation of life.
That in itself is enough to make “Come See Me in the Good Light” worthy of Oscar gold, and more than enough to call it a significant piece of queer filmmaking – but there’s another level that distinguishes it even further.
In capturing Gibson and Falley as they face what most of us like to think of as an unimaginable future, White’s quietly profound movie puts its audience face-to-face with a situation that transcends all differences not only of sexuality or gender, but of race, age, or economic status as well. It confronts us with the inevitability few of us are willing to consider until we have to, the unhappy ending that is rendered certain by the joyful beginning, the inescapable conclusion that has the power to make the words “happily ever after” feel like a hollow promise. At the center of this loving portrait of a great American artist is a universal story of saying goodbye.
Yes, there is hope, and yes, good fortune often prevails – sometimes triumphantly – in the ongoing war against the cancer that has come to threaten the palpably genuine love this deeply-bonded couple has found together; but they (and we) know that, even in the best-case scenario, the end will surely come. All love stories, no matter how happy, are destined to end with loss and sorrow; it doesn’t matter that they are queer, or that their gender identities are not the same as ours – what this loving couple is going through, together, is a version of the same thing every loving couple lucky enough to hold each other for a lifetime must eventually face.
That they meet it head on, with such grace and mutual care, is the true gift of the movie.
Gibson lived long enough to see the film’s debut at Sundance, which adds a softening layer of comfort to the knowledge we have when watching it that they eventually lost the battle against their cancer; but even if they had not, what “Come See Me in the Good Light” shows us, and the unflinching candor with which it does so, delivers all the comfort we need.
Whether that’s enough to earn it an Oscar hardly matters, though considering the notable scarcity of queer and queer-themed movies in this year’s competition it might be our best shot at recognition.
Either way, it’s a moving and celebratory film statement with the power to connect us to our true humanity, and that speaks to a deeper experience of life than most movies will ever dare to do.
The 44th annual Queen of Hearts pageant was held at The Lodge in Boonsboro, Md. on Friday, Feb. 20. Six contestants vied for the title and Bev was crowned the winner.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
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