'Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton's Cafeteria' Documentary Screening

About Screaming Queens:

In the summer of 1966, three years before the famous riot at New York’s Stonewall Inn which would be credited with starting the modern fight for gay rights in the United States, a young drag queen patronizing Compton’s Cafeteria on Taylor and Turk Streets in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District threw her cup of hot coffee in the face of a police officer as he made an unwarranted attempt to arrest her. The riot that followed would come to be known as the first moment of politicization for the trans community in United States history. While a near complete media blackout in both mainstream and homophile newspapers nearly relegated the event to permanent historical obscurity, this 2005 documentary shines a light on the group of drag queens, queer youth, and trans and gender nonconforming people who banded together to collectively fight back against their ongoing discrimination.

Co-written, -directed, and -produced by Susan Stryker and Victor Silverman, Screaming Queens is essential viewing which not only explores a significant milestone in the history of trans and gender nonconforming people in the United States, but ensures that the trans women of color who have always stood at the center of LGBTQIA+ advocacy and liberation are accorded their rightful place in our history.

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Host or Publisher Howard County AAPI Commission