Screaming Queens

Monday September 17

7:00pm

Screaming Queens is a Documentary about transgenders and transvestites fighting police harassment at Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco’s Tenderloin in 1966, three years before the famous riot at Stonewall Inn bar in NYC.

Compton Cafeteria Riot

transwomen and drag queens working in the tenderloin district of San Francisco often took refuge in Gene Compton’s, an after-hours cafeteria. They would buy coffee and stay for hours, temporarily escaping te troubles of the street. After the owner began harassing them with discriminitory policies, the Queens formed an organization named Vanguard to fight for their rights to use the cafeteria. On a hot summer evening, after an unsuccessful picket, the owner summoned police to evict the queens and a riot broke out as they fought back.