An Historical Case Study of Trans Exclusion and Empowerment: Implications for Transgender Older Adults and Aging

ABSTRACT

Transgender older adults have a long history of exclusion that shapes current experiences with social services. However, scant gerontological research uses archival data, which can provide critical context for service providers. Moreover, sparse research examines how exclusion can be a catalyst for change that social workers could leverage. Empowerment theory provides a theoretical tool to explain how this is possible. This multidisciplinary case study blends community member interviews and archival data to answer this question: How did exclusion shape empowerment and social change for transgender Americans? This study focuses on the events before and after the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot, one of the first acts of LGBTQIA+ collective resistance that led to new services for and by transgender Americans. Data reveal how exclusion facilitated the emergence of collective empowerment among transgender women and queer youth in San Francisco. Archival data shows how exclusion preceded self-efficacy, critical consciousness, involvement with similar others, acquisition of new skills, and ultimately action to eliminate social, economic, and political barriers and power imbalances. This study provides both empirical and theoretical tools to contribute new data and perspectives on trans exclusion and empowerment and its implications for social workers serving transgender older adults.

KEYWORDS:

• LGBTQIA+
• transgender
• collective action
• empowerment
• archival

Introduction

Transgender older Americans remain a highly marginalized yet resilient community (Cortes et al., 2019; Li et al., 2023). While by no means homogenous, transgender older Americans share historical experiences that can shape present-day barriers, opportunities, and resources (Fredriksen-Goldsen et al., 2022). Understanding history can thus illuminate current needs, supports, and responses to services among transgender older adults (e.g., Farmer & Yancu, 2015; Fredriksen-Goldsen et al., 2022). This article presents a case study of one of the earliest examples of collective resistance among transgender Americans that prompted services and support for and by transgender communities. This case study presents a unique multidisciplinary lens that blends methodological approaches in humanities and social science to examine how exclusion can shape collective empowerment and spark social change. More specifically, this study uses archival data to answer the following question: How did exclusion shape empowerment and social change for transgender Americans?

Research on transgender older adults

Transgender older adults have navigated barriers and nontraditional supports across the life course. Research on transgender older adults documents significant challenges, including health disparities (Fredriksen-Goldsen et al. 2014; Fredriksen-Goldsen et al., 2011; Hoy-Ellis et al., 2017; Lambrou et al., 2022; Pharr, 2021; van Heesewijk et al., 2021), economic insecurity (Adan et al., 2021; Hoy-Ellis et al., 2017; Hoy-Ellis et al., 2017; Li et al., 2023; Willis et al., 2020), employment discrimination (Adan et al., 2021; Li et al., 2023; Pang et al., 2019; Perone, 2020; Willis et al., 2021), culturally responsive care (Adan et al., 2021, Hoy-Ellis et al., 2022; Pang et al., 2019; Phar, 2021; Walker et al., 2017; Willis et al., 2020), elder abuse (Bloemen et al., 2019; Justice in Aging, 2015), and later life and end-of-life care planning (Pang et al., 2019). Transgender older adults also have significantly higher risk of poor physical health, disability, depressive symptoms, and stress compared to lesbian, gay, and bisexual older adults (Fredriksen-Goldsen et al., 2014).

Despite these numerous challenges, research has also shown that transgender older adults have significantly larger and more diverse networks than cisgender lesbian, gay, and bisexual older adults (Erosheva et al., 2016). These larger social networks may be a result of increased discrimination and rejection from biological families (James et al., 2016; Mature Market Institute® et al., 2010) and present a complex picture of community challenges and resources that transgender older adults experience across the life course.

Exclusion from lesbian and gay collective action

While acronyms like “LGBTQIA+” (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual) suggest a unified community, gay spaces have often excluded transgender Americans. The Mattachine Society and Daughters of Bilitis, two of the earliest formal organizations for gay rights, imposed rigid dress codes at their “Annual Reminder” pickets in the 1960s, which mandated that men wear white shirts and slacks and women wear dresses (Greer, 2018). In 1993, the organizing committee of the National Gay and Lesbian March on Washington voted to remove the word “transgender” from the official name of the march (Greer, 2018). The Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival faced annual criticism for allowing only “womyn born womyn” to attend (Protest against Michigan, 1995, p. 13).

Collective action by gay organizations to pass anti-discrimination laws often excluded protections for transgender Americans. New York City’s anti-discrimination bill repeatedly removed protections for gender identity to increase its likelihood of passage – even though it still didn’t pass until 1986. In 2007, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the largest U.S. LGBTQIA+ organization agreed to remove gender identity from the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) in the hopes that a bill including only protections for sexual orientation would pass (Murray, 2007). It did not. In 2013, staff at HRC sparked controversy after asking an activist to lower a transgender pride flag to avoid it being captured by television cameras (Greer, 2018).

Exclusion itself has been linked to poor health outcomes (Hermaszewska et al., 2022; Temple et al., 2019). However, I argue that it can also be leveraged to spark social change. Empowerment theory provides a theoretical tool to explain how this is possible.

Empowerment theory

Empowerment theory draws from the resources of marginalized groups and starts from the assumption that change can occur within these groups by focusing on how existing strengths within these groups can establish more equitable resources (Gutierrez, 1994). Embedded in empowerment theory is a latent assumption that systems of oppression can create strength, or resilience, that sparks change.

While scholars disagree somewhat on how to define empowerment, empowerment theory tends to include five key components (1) increasing self-efficacy; (2) developing critical consciousness; (3) involvement with similar others; (4) developing skills; and (5) taking action to eliminate social, economic, and political barriers and power imbalances (Bay-Cheng, 2012; Gutiérrez, 1994; Pearrow, 2008). Increasing self-efficacy involves an intrapersonal component of empowerment and a strengthening of one’s sense of personal power and ability to act or create change (Bay-Cheng, 2012; Garvin, 1985; Gutiérrez, 1994; Pearrow, 2008; Zimmerman, 1990). When considering collective empowerment, group efficacy emerges when groups develop a sense of collective power and believe that they can create change as a group (Bay-Cheng, 2012; Gutiérrez et al., 1995; Pearrow, 2008). While most research focuses on individual empowerment, some scholars have stressed the importance of applying empowerment theory to collective action (Bay-Cheng, 2012; Gutiérrez et al., 1995; Pease, 2002; Peterson, 2010).

Developing critical consciousness, interacting with similar others, and developing skills for change involves an interpersonal element of empowerment theory. Critical consciousness develops when groups see how structures impact individual and group experience (Freire, 1973; Gutiérrez, 1994). Skill development enables individuals and groups to increase resources for social, economic, and political power (Florin & Wandersman, 1990; Gutiérrez, 1994). Interacting with people who share similar social locations or concerns about social, economic, and political status can create a network of support that generates change (Bay-Cheng, 2012, Chessler and Chesney, 1988; Garvin, 1985; Gutiérrez, 1994; Pearrow, 2008). Through constant interactions with people who have similar grievances, individuals can see how personal problems are part of larger systems of oppression and then work collectively for change.

Taking action to eliminate barriers and power imbalances represents a behavioral element of empowerment theory. Empowerment theory envisions these processes as nonlinear and occurring simultaneously and throughout one’s life (Gutiérrez, 1994). Groups seek change as they develop self-efficacy, critical consciousness, skills, and interact with other people similarly situated. Years of discrimination and repeated injustices can also spark a process of group empowerment that leads to change (Carr, 2003; Hart, 1996). Empowerment represents a way of interacting with the world and creates opportunities for change at various moments through the lifespan of an individual and collective experience (Freire, 1973; Gutiérrez, 1994).

This article aims to present a multidisciplinary case study that blends unstructured community member interviews and archival data to answer this question: How did exclusion shape empowerment and social change for transgender Americans? This study focuses on the events before and after the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot, one of the first acts of LGBTQIA+ collective resistance that led to new services for and by transgender Americans.

Methodology

This methodological approach draws from core principles of case study methodology of qualitative research in which the focus is on contextual study (Priya, 2021; Simons, 2020). Case studies explore in depth a program, event, activity, process, or one or more individuals and are bound by time and activity (Creswell, 2022; Priya, 2021). This case study examines how exclusion spurred empowerment and social change for transgender Americans. This research was conducted in two key stages. The first stage identified the case study from unstructured interviews with transgender older adults in the United States (n = 20). This stage identified the following research question: How did exclusion (e.g., from mainstream society/gay communities) shape empowerment and social change for transgender Americans? It also identified the historical case to study this phenomenon: the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot.¹

The second stage employed archival research to examine that research question. The first stage of the process was exploratory, which aimed to identify new research questions to subsequently be used in research in a more extensive way (Lashua, 2022; Yin, 2017) and identify the specific case to study. The second stage used archival research (e.g., news articles, ephemera) to examine and help explain a particular phenomenon (Lashua, 2022; Yin, 2017). Scholars have increasingly advocated for incorporating an historical lens into research to foreground social justice and contextualize present conditions as a product of historical context (e.g., Jones & Williams, 2017; Pennell, 2023; Suarez-Balcazar et al., 2023). Archival research has become an important tool for researchers to accomplish that goal (e.g., Bakko, 2019; Dawes, 2020; Santa-Ramirez, 2023)

Because the first stage involved oral history and the second stage involved archival research, this project was deemed not research by the Institutional Review Board and thus not subject to IRB review. However, participants were told that their participation was purely voluntary and that they could end the interview at any time. Interviews were not audio-recorded, but the primary investigator requested permission to record written notes, which helped identify common themes, a research question, and a case study from these interviews.

Stage 1: case identification

During this stage, the primary investigator conducted informal and unstructured interviews with transgender older adults (n = 20) to capture an oral history of exclusion. Unstructured interviews provide information from one’s life story, influences, experiences, circumstances, and issues that are best surfaced when the interviewer remains an active listener and sporadically asks questions for clarity (Brinkmann, 2020; Mulcahy et al., 2021). The primary investigator’s decades of personal and professional experience in LGBTQIA+ spaces, and particularly working with transgender older adults, helped build rapport and credibility in this community to conduct these unstructured interviews.

Stage 1 was less focused on data collection but instead on narrowing the broader research question about exclusion and identifying a case to examine that question. Interviews were exploratory and primarily participant driven. Instead of approaching the interview with a set of predetermined questions from an interview guide, the primary investigator asked one very broad and open-ended question: “Can you tell me about your experiences of exclusion?” The primary investigator then asked follow-up questions to clarify information and probe for more details. However, participants drove the substantive topics of the interview.

Participant recruitment for Stage 1 started in San Francisco through informal networks that the primary investigator already had and then grew through snowball sampling to other geographic regions where transgender older adults lived (e.g., other areas of California and outside of California). Participants were recruited from word of mouth. Because this stage was not focused on data collection but more on identifying the research question, data saturation was reached with 20 participants. Participants ranged in age from early 60’s to mid-80’s. Over half of participants were transgender older adults of color. Interviews occurred in person or by phone and lasted approximately 20–40 minutes each.

After completing each interview, the primary investigator reviewed the written notes and drafted a subsequent memo that summarized information. Theoretical thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006; Xu & Wang, 2021) was employed to identify common themes among interviews. Theoretical thematic analysis is a more descriptive approach that requires a lower level of interpretation (Lassell et al., 2022; Vaismoradi et al., 2013) and systematic identification and organization of themes or patterns of meaning (Braun & Clarke, 2006; Lassell et al., 2022). Two dominant themes emerged from these interviews: exclusion and empowerment. While participants did not always use the word “exclusion,” they nearly all discussed experiences of being left out and marginalized from mainstream and lesbian and gay communities at some point (and often many times) throughout their lives. Similarly, participants did not always use the words “empower” or “empowerment” during their interviews. However, they often discussed ways in which they developed a sense of personal and collective “power,” “control” or “agency” and created alternate forms of support in response to this exclusion.

Several participants specifically identified the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot as a pivotal moment of resistance in their life or the lives of other transgender older adults. They encouraged the primary investigator to learn more about it, elevate awareness about it beyond the LGBTQIA+ community, and use it as a case example for this project. These interviews informed the research question and decision to use the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot as the case to examine this question. The selection of the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot as a case offers several strengths. First, it emerged from years and multiple systems of exclusion. Second, it sparked some of the first known formal supportive services for transgender Americans driven and led by the transgender community. Third, it remains a vastly unknown event in both LGBTQIA+ and general histories of the American civil rights era of the 1960’s. Erasure of this event from a larger public consciousness serves as a stark reminder about the importance of elevating historical knowledge about small but significant events that spark social change – and thus transforming exclusion to inclusion and visibility.

Stage 2: archival research

During Stage 2, the primary investigator conducted primary archival research on the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot to gather empirical data from university libraries, museums, and historical society archives to gather contemporaneous data relating to the event. Archival data collection focused on data from 1960 to 1972 (6 years before and after the Riot) to narrow the scope of events more immediately preceding or succeeding the Riot. Empirical data includes original source materials such as contemporaneous newspaper articles, publications, ephemera, photographs, and interviews of Riot participants, community leaders, religious leaders, social workers, and police officers.

The primary investigator analyzed this data consistent with historical methods, including using historical archival data to historicize conceptual categories and objects of analysis and combining interpretive methods with explanation (Lewenson & McAllister, 2015; Myrdal, 2012; Pearce, 2012; Puwar & Sharma, 2012; Steinmetz, 2011). While reviewing archival material, the primary investigator recorded notes in individual notebooks and drafted memos to summarize data and identify common themes and emergent ideas. Data was also organized chronologically and thematically in Excel using theoretical thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006; Lassell et al., 2022). The primary investigator used principles of interpretive content analysis to identify themes, examples, and other relevant overt content and latent context and meanings (Bakko, 2019; Drisko & Maschi, 2016; Krippendorff, 2003). More specifically, and following Braun and Clark’s six phases of thematic analysis, the primary investigator reviewed each archival data source (e.g., article, ephemera) for the larger themes of exclusion and empowerment (based on Stage 1 interviews) and then iteratively developed subsequent codes that helped organize the data around larger themes (e.g., types of exclusion, types of empowerment) and subthemes (e.g., types of exclusion within the LGBTQIA+ community, police interactions, political change, economic change, allies, organizations, trans-specific services). See Table 1.

Table 1. Exclusion and empowerment themes and subthemes.

Themes	Subthemes
Exclusion
	Within LGBTQ+ Communities
	Segregation
	Police Interactions
Empowerment
	Political Change
	Economic Change
	Social Change
	New allies
	New organizations before the Riot (Vanguard/Street Orphans)
	New organizations/services after the Riot

During this process, the primary investigator also separately coded any descriptive information of the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot. Figure A presents a chronological timeline of key events in this case study.

Figure A. Timeline of Key Events

Findings

In August 1966, queer youth, drag queens, and transsexual² women revolted against years of discrimination and police harassment in San Francisco. Compton’s Cafeteria was an all-night diner in the Tenderloin, a poor inner city San Francisco neighborhood that was home to queer youth, drag queens, and “transsexual hustlers” (Elliot Blackstone Interview: MTF Transgender Activism in the Tenderloin and Beyond, 1966–1975, 1998; Silverman & Stryker, 2005c). During one August evening in 1966, restaurant staff called police to eject a drag queen. When police arrived, an officer tried to grab one of the drag queens who was eating (Silverman & Stryker, 2005b). In response, she threw coffee in the officer’s face, and a fight quickly developed (Elliot Blackstone Interview: MTF Transgender Activism in the Tenderloin and Beyond, 1966–1975, 1998; Levin, 2019; Silverman & Stryker, 2005b; Stryker & Van Buskirk, 1996). Queer youth broke windows, threw dishes and trays at police, vandalized a police car, and burned down a nearby newsstand (Broshears, 1972, Screaming Queens, 2005; Stryker, 2008). Drag queens hit police “below the belt” and smashed their faces with heavy purses (Broshears, 1972). As one of the first known acts of LGBTQIA+ militant resistance to police harassment and discrimination, the Riot became a turning point for San Francisco’s LGBTQIA+ community, especially poor, working-class gender non-binary residents.

Exclusion

The riot at Compton’s Cafeteria did not occur in a vacuum but was sparked through decades of exclusion, discrimination, and police harassment. Exclusion from a tiered LGBTQIA+ community and discrimination from a larger transphobic and homophobic community shaped spaces for poor queer youth, drag queens, and transsexual women and ultimately the places where they could resist.

A tiered LGBTQIA+ community

In San Francisco, three main communities had emerged to achieve LGBTQIA+ liberation. The homophile movement consisted mostly of middle- to upper-middle class professional (mostly white) gay men who focused on discrimination in professional employment, the military, and police harassment (D’Emilio, 1983; Homosexuals protest draft exclusion, 1966; Johnson, 2006). Homophile organizers were usually “orderly” and “well dressed” in suits and ties when picketing or protesting to maintain a particular public image (Grace Cathedral picketed, 1965), and the more moderate homophile leaders disapproved of riots and public protests overall (Armstrong & Crage, 2006). Lesbian organizations like the Daughters of Bilitis adopted an integrationist stance that emphasized how lesbians mirrored other middle-class, heterosexual, white women and encouraged DOB members to engage in a “mode of behavior and dress acceptable to society” (Esterberg, 1994, p. 430). Given the 1950’s crusade to purge gay and gender non-binary people from the military and federal employment (D’Emilio, 1983; Johnson, 2006), many moderate homophile activists believed the best way to improve conditions for LGB people was to present an image that reflected dominant culture (D’Emilio, 1983; Johnson, 2006).

Many homophile activists patroned and even organized in bars, and a second group of activists developed out of the bar culture itself. This group was more working-class and did not limit its protests to suits and ties. Most of the political and social organizing done in bars happened as a function of space – the bar became a centralized location for many queer people to gather (Stryker & Van Buskirk, 1996).

A third community consisted of transsexual women, queer youth, and drag queens living in the Tenderloin (Hague, 1969; Rev Hansen speaks on redevelopment, 1966). They had been rejected from many normative circles because of their gender non-binary dress and behavior, their poverty, their race and ethnicity, and engagement in an underground economy such as drugs and sex work. Many bars that served gay clients (and even some gay-owned bars) refused to serve them for fear of more bar raids and revocation of their liquor license (GLQ Archive, 1998). While some homophile, bar-based, and Tenderloin organizers worked collaboratively, other homophile activists tried to distance themselves from the Tenderloin drag queens who they perceived reflected an “undesirable image” of San Francisco’s queer community (A “secularized” church, Hillman, 2011)

Segregation

The Tenderloin neighborhood lies in the “heart of downtown San Francisco” (Hansen, 1966). Its name purportedly represents a reference to the “soft underbelly” of the city where vice, drugs, prostitution, and corruption reigned (Cotton, 2012; Hansen, 1966). Many of the residents living in the Tenderloin experienced housing discrimination, unemployment, poor education, malnutrition, and sexually transmitted infections (Hansen, Forrester, & Bird 1965). In 1969, Sister Betsy Hague described the Tenderloin as a “center for homosexuals, prostitutes, hustlers, and drug abusers for many years” (Hague, 1969). Reverend Edward Hansen described the Tenderloin as “[t]he central city ghetto [and] human dump heap of San Francisco. It is the place where the social outcasts – the aged, the poor, the infirm, the youth with sexual problems – persons of all races and religions – go and are out of sight. Here they are forgotten, ignored, and ultimately die, first emotionally and then physically” (Rev Hansen, 1966).

The Tenderloin became home to many runaway queer youth in the 1960’s and a space for an emerging transgender community (Vanguard Revisited, 2011). Residential hotels, 24-hour cafeterias, and coffee houses became a haven for many queer and transgender youth living in the Tenderloin (Vanguard Revisited, 2011). Because hotel and apartment managers outside the Tenderloin would not rent to “queens,” run-down places in the Tenderloin became home for young hustlers, queens, and “hair fairies” who defied masculine gender norms (Screaming Queens, Interview with Amanda St. Jaymes 2005b; Stryker 2008).

Police interactions: bar raids, arrests, and police entrapment

San Francisco police targeted LGBTQIA+ people through bar raids, arrests, and police entrapment (Stryker & Van Buskirk, 1996). Gender non-binary residents experienced the brunt of these targets. Police arrested drag queens for vagrancy, obstructing the sidewalk, or female impersonating before being strip searched (Silverman & Stryker, 2005b). Drag queens who refused to conform to gender norms were sent to isolation, including one woman who stayed in isolation for nearly 60 days for refusing to shave her hair (Silverman & Stryker, 2005b). In August 1961, police arrested nearly 100 people at the Tay-Bush Inn, an after-hours club that served food and alcohol to working-class queer people of color (Stryker & Van Buskirk, 1996). After allowing white, middle-class patrons to leave, police booked the remaining working-class people of color (Stryker & Van Buskirk, 1996). Several years later, forty police officers raided the Tenderloin’s Chukker Club on February 13, 1965 (Biggest S.F. raid, 1965). The S.F. Chronicle described the club as hosting “gay and frivolous activity” where “young things in bouffant hairstyles and false eyelashes fluttered through the throng” (Biggest S.F. raid, 1965). Fifty-six of 200 patrons were arrested, and 23 (including club owner Carlos Lara) were arrested for “female impersonation” (Biggest S.F. raid, 1965). A few months later in October 1965, a S.F. judge addressing a rookie class of police officers advised them to pay little attention to accusations of police brutality because the general population did not believe such actions occurred (Night stick justice, 1965).

In July 1966 (one month before the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot), police arrested “14 male homosexuals dressed as girls” over the previous two nights and vowed “a continuing round-up of prostitutes in the Tenderloin district” (Heat’s on Tenderloin street vice, 1966). In August 1966 (the same month as the Riot), Vector, a publication with many gay readers, published an editorial excoriating San Francisco’s vice squad for actively using police officers as “bait” to “trap patrons by whatever lures” (Entrapment and the vice squad, 1966).

Empowerment

Years of exclusion, discrimination, and police harassment affected queer youth, drag queens, and transsexual women living in the Tenderloin. Members of these marginalized communities needed immense strength to survive amidst the poverty, violence, and discrimination they encountered. While these obstacles created hardship, they also formed the bedrock for empowerment through political and economic transformation and social action.

Political and economic change

In early 1960, several bar owners met with Police Chief Cahill to challenge police corruption (Agee, 2006; Bob Ross Interview, 1999; Thomas Cahill Interview, 1996), which led to the indictment of seven police officers for extorting money from gay bars (1st bar bribe, 1960). Local San Francisco press dubbed this as the “gayola” scandal because of the large sums of “payola” that police made from gay patrons and bar owners (All 4 cops acquitted, 1960). While the press focused on police corruption, the trial focused on homosexuality instead, and four officers were acquitted (1st bar bribe, 1960; All 4 cops acquitted; 1960). The mayor subsequently resumed the City’s attack on establishments that served queer customers (City, state officials). Chief Cahill provided plainclothes police officers to raid bars and ultimately shut down 25 gay and lesbian bars (65 freed in “gay bar” case, 1961; Special cops for “gay bars,”). In response, San Francisco bar owners formed the Tavern Guild in 1961, to collectively organize against police harassment (Agee, 2006). The Guild provided photos of undercover officers and informed each other of legal loopholes that would help combat police harassment (Agee, 2006).

José Sarria, a popular drag performer, became a symbol of rebellion for San Francisco’s queer community. Sarria had witnessed “gayola” numerous times when police officers extorted money and was growing tired of watching these events reoccur. Before Harvey Milk ran for city supervisor and eventually won in 1977, Sarria galvanized his patrons and supporters into action when he ran for San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1961 and won 5,600 votes for office.

After Sarria ran for supervisor, Guy Strait formed the League for Civil Education (LCE) in 1961 to encourage San Francisco’s queer community to vote and participate in politics. In 1964, several members from LCE formed the Society for Individual Rights (SIR), which proclaimed itself as “an organization formed from within the Community working for the Community” and pushed for “political action” (SIR’s statement of policy, 1966). On April 17, 1966, SIR opened the first American gay community center, in the South of Market neighborhood, adjacent to the Tenderloin (Community center opens, 1966; Community center to open, 1966; GLQ Archive, 1998). SIR hoped to create a space not only for gay organizing but also to increase visibility of the need for federal anti-poverty money for San Francisco’s central-city residents, including the Tenderloin (Forrester, 1966).

Social change: new allies and new organizations

As church leaders increasingly participated in and organized within the Civil Rights Movement, a new wave of social reform swept through segments of the clergy, including in San Francisco’s Glide Memorial Methodist Church in the Tenderloin (Silverman & Stryker, 2005d). Reverend Cecil Williams became a senior pastor at Glide in 1966. Before Reverend Williams joined Glide, he had engaged in much social activism in the South in the fight for racial equality. Through racism, he saw “division … separation … [and] segregation” that prevented acceptance of “people as they are” (The controversial, 2013). These experiences gave him a unique lens with which to view Glide’s role in helping its community achieve social, economic, and political equality (Stryker & Van Buskirk, 1996).

In addition to Reverend Cecil Williams, Glide benefited from Reverend Edward Hansen and social worker Ted McIlvenna. Reverend Hansen conducted outreach to Tenderloin’s queer youth, drag queens, and transsexual sex workers during Glide’s “night ministry” where they would talk on the streets or at Compton’s Cafeteria (Conversation on teen age homosexuals, 1966; Silverman & Stryker, 2005d). McIlvenna helped create the Council on Religion and the Homosexual (CRH) in December 1964 to provide support and “promote a continuing dialogue between the religious community and the homosexual” (A page in history flyer, 1964).

On January 1, 1965, CRH sponsored a Mardi Gras benefit ball at California Hall. The Tavern Guild used its fundraising skills and connections to publicize this event (Agee, 2006). While organizers like McIlvenna had obtained the proper permits, police nevertheless raided the event (Stryker, 1996). A subsequent article in the Mattachine Review described the raid as “the most lavish display of police harassment known in recent times” (After the ball was over, 1965). San Francisco police surrounded the front of California Hall with floodlights, cameras, squad cars, and paddy wagons (Agee, 2006; Stryker, 1996). Police intimidation tactics prompted nearly 1,000 of the 1,500 guests to leave, but nearly five to six-hundred guests entered the event through the flashing lights of police officers’ cameras (Agee, 2006).

In the fall of 1965 Adrian Ravarour and Billy Garrison formed Vanguard, “an organization for the youth in the Tenderloin attempting to get for its citizens a sense of dignity and responsibility to[o] long denied” (Vanguard, 1966). Ravarour had moved to San Francisco in 1963 to train at the San Francisco Ballet School (A starting point for future research, nd). After a teacher humiliated him in 1965 for being gay, he responded that “being gay was as natural as being straight” (Religious Archives Network, 2008). Billy Garrison encountered similar taunts for his gender non-binary appearance. Garrison described himself as a “hair fairy,” because he wore masculine clothes but styled and hair sprayed his hair into a beehive, wore make-up, and polished his nails (Vanguard Revisited, 2011). Garrison and Ravarour began talking about how to “overcome this” and “create[] a dialogue” that could “mitigate friction” and help people “understand one another and create tolerance” (Vanguard Revisited, 2011).

In addition to the queer youth who participated in Vanguard, the Tenderloin also housed young lesbians who referred to themselves as Street Orphans (Hansen et al., 1965; Stryker, 1996). While information about Street Orphans remains sparse, it appears to have formed around the same time Vanguard developed and had close ties to Vanguard (Stryker, 1996).

Some homophile activists tried to distance themselves from Vanguard and Street Orphans because they believed that they reflected an “undesirable image” of San Francisco’s queer community that linked “homosexuals” with vice and crime (A “secularized” church, Hillman, 2011). Many of the homophile organizers worked to separate links between crime, perceived degeneracy, and sexual orientation, in the hopes of opening new doors for public life for lesbians and gay men (Plaster, 2012). However, this effort left many queer youth, transsexual women, and drag queens living in the Tenderloin excluded from this movement.

The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot

Compton’s Cafeteria

Compton’s Cafeteria was one of several chains of restaurants owned by Gene Compton in San Francisco from the 1940’s to the 1970’s. The restaurant served inexpensive food and coffee all night (Silverman & Stryker, 2005c). Compton’s Cafeteria represented a centralized location for queer youth, hair fairies, and drag queens to socialize (Elliot Blackstone, Interview, 1998; Silverman & Stryker, 2005c; Stryker & Van Buskirk, 1996). It was located next to low-cost residential hotels, a bathhouse, a corner bar, and a Woolworth’s retail store (Silverman & Stryker, 2005e). Because many of the drag queens and queer youth living in the Tenderloin were too young, too poor, or too gender non-binary to patron the Tenderloin’s bars, many instead socialized at Compton’s Cafeteria, where they could discuss the day’s events, “parade their fashions” and let friends and chosen family know that they had survived the night (Silverman & Stryker, 2005c,e; Stryker, 2008).

Despite its convenient location, inexpensive food, and all-night hours, queer youth, drag queens, and transsexual women who frequented Compton’s were not welcomed with open arms at this establishment. One gay publication referred to Compton’s as “one of the worst offenders against human dignity in the Tenderloin Area of San Francisco” (Strait, 1966c). Guy Strait accused Compton’s of having “long treated the younger residents of that area as if they were not at all human” (Strait, 1966c). Vanguard claimed that Compton’s hired security guards to “manhandle” queer youth and drag queen customers who lingered too long (Strait, 1966c).

A picket for change

On July 18, 1966, Vanguard organized a picket of Compton’s Cafeteria to protest Compton’s treatment of Tenderloin’s queer youth and gender non-binary adults (Silverman & Stryker, 2005d; Strait, 1966b). Vanguard explained that the protest was a response to the “continuous[] … physical and verbal abuse by the management [and security guards],” and the restaurant’s twenty-five-cent “service charge” on all orders as a discriminatory practice aimed to exclude poor queer youth (Strait, 1966b). Vanguard members were also upset that Compton’s had started ejecting some of the queer youth and drag queens who frequented the restaurant (Silverman & Stryker, 2005d). Nearly twenty-five persons carried picket signs from 10 a.m. to noon (Strait, 1966b). An article reporting the incident recounted it as a fairly mild event where the picketers were “well-behaved” and no “untoward incident” occurred (Strait, 1966b).

The Riot that Started a Revolution

A few weeks later in early August 1966, Guy Strait commented in an editorial in the Citizen News on the necessity of a more militant movement.

Sooner or later … there is going to be a big push by homosexuals for rights and equality … When this big push comes along it is sure to bring police action against it … . Are we prepared to protect those who fight for our rights? Are we ready to realize that this person has sustained an injury in the field of battle? (Strait, 1966a)

Days later, the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot occurred. Not just for “gay people” but for “individual rights and freedom” (Silverman & Stryker, 2005a,e). The Riot represented one of the first times that transgender, gay, and gender non-binary queer youth and adults engaged in militant collective action in the United States. It also profoundly changed the landscape for transgender and gender non-binary residents in San Francisco. Police harassment decreased, and drag queens and transsexual women began to wear women’s clothing and make-up during the daytime (Silverman & Stryker, 2005b).

A surge of services in the aftermath

Before the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot, no services for transgender or gender non-binary persons existed in San Francisco. Beyond word of mouth, no state or national networks existed to connect people with other transgender or gender non-binary persons throughout the country (Elliot Blackstone, Interview, 1998). No government programs existed to serve this community (Elliot Blackstone, Interview, 1998).

In late 1966 or early 1967, transsexual women formed COG, Conversion Our Goal, which later became the Transsexual Counseling Service and then the National Transsexual Counseling Unit (GLQ Archive, 1998; The transsex cases, 1967). COG developed “when a number of transsexuals got together in an effort to end police harassment and to obtain greater services for sisters” (Ms Leslie, 1973). COG reached out to Elliot Blackstone, a police officer and community relations officer to the Central City Anti-Poverty Program, and together they formed the National Transsexual Counseling Unit (Elliot Blackstone, Interview, 1998; Ms Leslie, 1973). Through this organization, peer counselors provided support services and referrals to transsexual women (Elliot Blackstone, Interview, 1998). Blackstone also provided criminal-related assistance to transsexual women (Elliot Blackstone, Interview, 1998). For example, Blackstone assisted a transsexual woman who had been arrested for selling drugs in getting transferred from the male jail to the female jail (Elliot Blackstone, Interview, 1998). This partnership resulted in “a number of advances for sisters, including limiting the application of impersonation laws [and] change of name on licenses” (Ms Leslie, 1973).

In 1968, Louise Ergestrasse, a transsexual sex worker in the Tenderloin, formed CATS, the California Association of Transsexuals Society (Elliot Blackstone, Interview, 1998; Ginsburg, 1968). CATS grew from a rift that developed between Blackstone, Ergestrasse, and other transsexual women in San Francisco after Blackstone began expressing views that transsexual women in San Francisco were creating tensions with medical service providers because they failed to provide the medical treatment that some transsexual women in San Francisco sought (GLQ Archive, 1998). Members from Vanguard and Street Orphans formed the Gay Liberation Front, which became the Gay Activist Alliance (GAA) in 1971 (GLQ Archive, 1998). The GAA helped establish support groups and other services for transgender residents through the creation of Helping Hands Center in the early 1970’s (GLQ Archive, 1998).

Discussion

Experiences of exclusion

The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot was not merely a response to exclusion from mainstream society, segregation, and discrimination by police against the Tenderloin’s queer youth and gender non-binary residents, it also represented a rebellion against the mainstream homophile movement that often excluded the rights of the “undesirables” in the Tenderloin. The gay and lesbian community “was not particularly friendly” to queer youth, transsexual women, hair fairies, and drag queens in San Francisco and perceived them as a threat (Elliot Blackstone, Interview, 1998). Bars “just threw them out” for fear of getting busted (Elliot Blackstone, Interview, 1998).

Homophile leaders in San Francisco mostly focused on discrimination against gay men. For example, in May 1966 (only a few months before the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot), homophile activists organized a military protest at San Francisco’s Federal Building, near the edge of the Tenderloin (Homosexuals protest draft exclusion, 1966). The protest focused on the exclusion of gay men from the military and failed to address the exclusion of transsexual women or gender non-binary adults. A 2014 study found that older transgender Americans (many of whom would have been coming of age in the 1960’s) are more likely to have served in the military compared to cisgender older adults (Fredriksen-Goldsen et al., 2014), especially before transitioning. By focusing only on the rights of gay men, the homophile movement excluded a key segment of the queer community. Given that military service can provide economic support and career opportunities that may not otherwise exist for many persons living in poverty, the exclusion of transgender and gender non-binary Americans stripped many individuals living in communities like the Tenderloin from advocating for certain economic opportunities outside of sex work and drugs.

Even when working-class people of color participated in homophile protests, mainstream media erased their participation. After police raided the Tay-Bush Inn in August 1961, media presented arrestees as white male professionals and erased the participation of working class and people of color (Agee, 2006). Some homophile leaders made comments to the media suggesting that they wanted to distance themselves from the Tenderloin’s community of “vice and crime,” which further stressed the need for community action within the Tenderloin (A “secularized” church, Hillman, 2011). Before the Riot, Compton’s Cafeteria also increasingly tried to exclude queer youth, drag queens, and transsexual women from eating there. Years of exclusion from mainstream and gay organizations combined with years of discrimination, poverty, and police harassment formed the ingredients for the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot.

The emergence of empowerment

Collective action grew from experiences of exclusion and ultimately led to new services, especially by and for transgender women. To achieve this collective action, however, Riot participants needed to develop a collective sense of empowerment. The data reveal a number of ways in which exclusion preceded the emergence of empowerment among transgender women, drag queens, and queer youth in San Francisco across the five components of empowerment: (1) increasing self-efficacy; (2) developing critical consciousness; (3) involvement with similar others; (4) developing skills; and (5) taking action to eliminate social, economic, and political barriers and power imbalances (Bay-Cheng, 2012; Gutiérrez, 1994; Pearrow, 2008).

Increasing Self-Efficacy: Drag queens, transgender women, and “hair fairies” developed intrapersonal empowerment and a sense of personal power as they experienced messages of exclusion from mainstream society and traditional gay spaces. For example, drag queens, transgender women, and “hair fairies” who were arrested for being gender non-conforming exhibited a rising self-efficacy during the 1960s as they engaged in acts of personal resistance by refusing to shave their hair after being arrested. In some cases, their individual resistance led to months of isolation in jail. The creation of spaces like Vanguard and Street Orphans were preceded by individual self-efficacy by people like Adrian Ravarour and Billy Garrison after their own personal experiences of exclusion for being gender non-binary.

Developing Critical Consciousness: Exclusion from gay spaces and frequent and arbitrary police arrests and harassment helped transgender women, drag queens, and queer youth develop a critical consciousness prior to the Riot. Through spaces like Glide Memorial Church, Street Orphans, Vanguard, and Compton’s Cafeteria in the Tenderloin, transgender women, drag queens, and queer youth were able to develop a collective critical consciousness as they shared similar experiences of exclusion. This critical consciousness helped connect their individual experiences of discrimination, harassment, and inequity to larger social structures and institutional inequity in housing, employment, social spaces, and criminal justice.

Involvement with Similar Others: Living, working, and socializing alongside each other in the Tenderloin provided opportunities for transgender women, drag queens, and queer youth to create a network of support that could eventually generate action for change. The development of organizations like Vanguard and Street Orphans provided space for queer youth to share experiences and ideas for change, particularly as gay organizations increasingly viewed Vanguard and Street Orphans with disdain. Vanguard and Street Orphans also provided space for queer youth to collectively meet with similar others as they were often excluded from gay bars. Likewise, Compton’s Cafeteria provided a place for transgender women, drag queens, and queer youth to socialize while sharing a meal. These experiences of socializing with “similar others” helped create a network of support that facilitated action for change.

Developing Skills: Drag performers at local gay bars gained invaluable resources and skills for safety and political transformation by collectively sharing information. Through the Tavern Guild, they gained access to photos of undercover officers and legal loopholes that they shared with others to build resources to combat police harassment. The Tavern Guild developed fundraising skills and networking connections that ultimately helped support events and calls to action. And while queer youth and transgender women (and sometimes drag queens) were often excluded from gay bars, Tavern Guild members that included drag queens allowed drag queens to share the skills and resources acquired with other drag queens as well as transgender women and queer youth living and working in the Tenderloin. Pickets and other forms of collective resistance that preceded the Riot also cultivated important skills.

Taking Action to Eliminate Social, Economic, and Political Barriers and Power Imbalances: Nearly twenty years before Harvey Milk ran for city supervisor, drag performer José Sarria took action to eliminate social, economic and political barriers for the queer community in San Francisco when he ran for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. He drew heavily from fundraising and networks fostered by groups like the Tavern Guild. Moreover, this act created a pathway for change and prompted the formation of new organizations and allies that created a foundation for earlier moments of resistance, including the New Year’s Eve Mardi Gras Ball and the Compton’s picket. The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot represents how years of exclusion and the development of collective empowerment can produce collective resistance and social change.

Implications for policy and practice regarding transgender older adults and aging

Transgender older adults have experienced decades of exclusion and collective empowerment. The lived experiences of transgender older adults could be instructive to policymakers, researchers, and practitioners working with transgender older adults on how to respond to similar attacks on this community. Transgender older adults could share invaluable lessons learned about self-efficacy, critical consciousness, network building, skill building, and collective action that could maximize strategies to expand (and maintain) transgender rights. Practitioners, including gerontological social workers, developing multigenerational programming could include intergenerational knowledge transfer in which transgender older adults share their experiences of resistance and empowerment while transgender youth and young adults share how experiences of exclusion and marginalization have shifted. Multigenerational conversations could spark new ideas of resistance that blend earlier models of collective action with new forms of digital resistance. Multigenerational programming that shares lessons learned could also provide social connection that helps curb rising rates of social isolation and loneliness among transgender older adults.

Moreover, gerontological social workers at all levels of practice serve clients who have previously experienced or presently experience exclusion and marginalization. When appropriate, social workers could incorporate various elements of empowerment theory in their practice to support transgender clients. Clinical social workers can help build self-efficacy, critical consciousness, and skill-building necessary for empowerment with older adults. Macro-level practitioners could incorporate social work skills in organizing, community outreach, and nonprofit leadership to help develop collective critical consciousness, involvement with similar others, and skill-building that supports collective action for change across the life course. Gerontological social workers can also facilitate group programs for transgender clients that build collective consciousness and skill-building to further facilitate empowerment.

Researchers must also understand how exclusion shapes how they view present day problems. Armed with this knowledge, scholars are better equipped to untangle complex interview responses or survey data that may be shaped by persistent themes of exclusion that continue to plague the transgender community. Understanding the importance of history and perpetuation of cyclical stories of exclusion and empowerment benefits scholars conducting research outside the transgender community, too. Scholars frequently study marginalized communities who have been excluded from larger social, economic, and political programs (and whose personal and community stories often have been silenced by a dominant cultural narrative). Grounding one’s research in the historical context in which it develops strengthens the research of scholars studying social problems affecting marginalized communities.

While the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot highlights one example of how historical exclusion (and empowerment) can spark social change, it also demonstrates a cyclical dynamic between exclusion and empowerment. Practitioners, policymakers, and researchers can use this case example as a guide to examine relationships between historical exclusion and empowerment. By understanding the past, practitioners, policymakers, and researchers can avoid perpetuating exclusion in the present and ensure their work gives voice to the very persons it aims to address.

Limitations and research perspectives

One limitation of this project was the sparse data. Data collection for this project was particularly challenging, given the marginalization and invisibility that the communities of interest experienced. Archival research of ephemera greatly supplemented formal news and community-based publications; however, voices of certain community members remained absent. Some communities were rendered even more invisible and had little written about them, including Street Orphans, an informal organization for young lesbians, including gender non-binary lesbians. The data rarely mentioned Street Orphans, which thus ironically may have perpetuated exclusion of this particular community in the narrative of the Riot. They may have played a larger role in the Riot and other forms of resistance that could be revealed through different forms of data collection (e.g., interviews). Sadly, decades of cumulative discrimination have likely taken a toll on Riot participants, and many have already passed away. Nevertheless, secondary interviews with people who can share stories they heard from former Street Orphans could help supplement this research and the overall narrative of exclusion and empowerment.

Despite this limitation, this study provides a unique multidisciplinary lens that blends methodological approaches in humanities and social science and uses archival data to examine how exclusion can shape collective empowerment and spark social change. While research on aging recognizes that experiences throughout one’s life can shape one’s current health, social, economic, and political needs and opportunities, sparse research on aging incorporates historical or archival research. This project aims to help fill that gap and identify implications of this multidisciplinary approach for transgender older adults and service providers who serve them.

Conclusion

Understanding history is imperative for practitioners, policymakers, and researchers to develop culturally responsive interventions in the present and plan better for the future. By looking at our history, we can see how experiences of and responses to exclusion can be reimagined as tools for change. Empowerment theory provides a helpful theoretical lens to explain how exclusion can spark social change. This project provides both empirical and theoretical tools to contribute new data and perspectives on trans exclusion and empowerment and its implications on trans aging and for transgender older adults and service providers.

Acknowledgments

I would like to express deep appreciation to the transgender older adults who participated in the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot and other acts of resistance that facilitated some of the rights that I enjoy today as well. I also would like to express specific gratitude to the 20 transgender older adults who shared their time and oral histories regarding exclusion, which helped shape this project. Moreover, I would like to acknowledge that this work would not have been possible without assistance from skilled librarians and staff on strategies for accessing hard to find archival data, including ephemera, at the San Francisco Historical Society and various university libraries throughout the United States. I greatly appreciate the assistance from research assistants Ashlee Osborne, Lara Panda, and Katherine Park for their assistance with manuscript preparation. I would also like to thank various scholars for their invaluable feedback on earlier versions of this article, including Dr. Karen Staller, Dr. Berit Ingersoll-Dayton, Dr. Lorraine M. Gutiérrez, Dr. Beth Glover Reed, Dr. Elizabeth Armstrong, Dr. Sandra Levitsky, the University of Michigan’s Sociology social movement workshop, and participants at conference presentations of this project at annual meetings for the American Sociological Association and the Society for Social Work and Research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a small grant from the University of Michigan to conduct archival research.

Notes

¹ While many scholars use the word “protest” instead of “riot” because of the pejorative connotations of a “riot,” this article intentionally uses the word “riot” to reflect the language of its participants and to elevate it as a means for social change.

² While “transsexual” is currently considered pejorative in many LGBTQIA+ spaces, this article uses this term when mirroring language used by Riot participants and referencing historical moments when that term remained an important term for self-identification. “Transsexual” still remains an important term among some older transgender Americans to emphasize that they have undergone particular medical procedures that they fought to secure.