by Rory Finn
When we look to the origins of modern Pride, it’s becoming better understood just how central trans and gender non-conforming people were to its creation. The 1966 riot at Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco, saw police raid a well-known gathering spot for trans women, arresting them for defying the gender norms of the time.
Three years later in 1969 the Stonewall Riots in New York are thought to have been kicked off by someone who was gender non-conforming (varying accounts place the mythical brick being thrown by a drag queen/trans femme/butch lesbian, *delete as applicable). In any event, it was people who broke the gender laws of the time who were most targeted, judged by how much or how little feminine clothing someone was wearing relative to their perceived sex assigned at birth.
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