San Diego declares August Transgender History Month

On Tuesday, the San Diego City Council voted unanimously to declare August Transgender History Month in the Southern California city.

“With the rise in anti-trans hate and bigotry, I want our trans community to know that I see you, I respect you, and I love you, as does this entire Council,” Councilmember Jennifer Campbell said. “More importantly, our city honors and celebrates all of the wonderful contributions you have made to San Diego. Happy Transgender History Month.”

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San Diego joins San Francisco and Silicon Valley’s Santa Clara County in declaring August Transgender History Month. Last year, the state of California made the same declaration.

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August earned the designation in honor of the trans women who rioted at Gene Compton’s Cafeteria in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco in August 1966, an LGBTQ+ uprising that predates the Stonewall riots by three years.

Compton’s was habitually hostile to their trans clientele, who were numerous in the red-light district. Trans patrons were subject to an extra service fee, and staff regularly called police to expel customers from the all-hours diner. Police were frequent customers, as well, because trans women were easy targets for arrest for violations of the city’s cross-dressing prohibitions; buttons on the wrong side of a shirt could lead to a night behind bars.

Tensions came to a head on a hot night in August after a Compton’s worker called police claiming that some transgender customers had become raucous. A trans patron was harassed by a cop and threw a cup of coffee in his face.

A riot broke out, with trans patrons overwhelming police and pushing them out of the cafeteria, smashing the diner’s plate glass windows and shouting their defiance. A newsstand outside the diner was burned to the ground, and police vehicles were damaged. Dozens were arrested and carted off to jail.

The next day, protesters gathered again at Compton’s, which denied them entry. They smashed the cafeteria’s newly installed plate glass windows once again.

At the San Diego council meeting, Trans Family Support Services youth volunteer Blu London said remembering trans history is a connection to those heroic protesters.

“By sharing the opportunity to learn about the stories of others who came before us, we make space to imagine futures of our own that we may not have seen, if not for the preservation of our community’s past,” he told councilmembers.

The proclamation comes as Republicans push an agenda led by former President Donald Trump attacking trans identity. Trump has promised to defund schools “pushing critical race theory, transgender insanity, and other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content onto the lives of our children.”

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