DailyBulletin.com – Kelly Rush, Staff Writer
Drag demonstration from “Screaming Queens.” (Photo courtesy of KQED)
A scalding cup of coffee thrown at a police officer at a hangout in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District did more than burn his skin.
That incendiary act of defiance at Compton’s Cafeteria in 1966 ignited a riot that propelled transgender rights from a fantasy to a militant movement.
In the documentary “Screaming Queens,” producers Victor Silverman, a history professor at Pomona College, and transsexual scholar Susan Stryker bring the night at Compton’s and its reverberations alive, if only for about an hour.
The film, which has won numerous awards including one for outstanding achievement at the Northern California Emmy’s, debuts nationwide on PBS in June, gay pride month.
Silverman said few people had heard of the riot before they made the documentary, or really understand the larger issues of gender equity, human rights and tolerance that the night at Compton’s illuminated.