Screaming Queens

Yesterday was the last of my tranny themed films at the Lezza and Gay Film Festival.

Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton's Cafeteria is a documentary about a clash between transsexuals / drag queens and the police that has been largely overlooked in gay history.

Gene Compton's was a cafe in the San Francisco Tenderloin district where lots of drag queens took to hanging out. One evening in 1966 the police arrived to arrest people for the crime of female impersonation. When they grabbed hold of one of the queens, she threw hot coffee in his face and soon there were sugar shakers and chairs flying through the windows. The queens were beating off police with their heavy handbags that they always kept loaded with small bottles as a means of defence. (If they were attacked, they would pull out the bottle and crack it over their assailant's head.)

As well as talking to the drag queens involved in the riot, the film features one of the policemen, Elliot Blackstone. He talks about how the conflict between the transgender community and the police changed his idea about transsexuals to one of acceptance and understanding. Although a straight man himself, he started researching the subject of transgenderism and once joined a protest singing "We Shall Overcome" as the trannys campaigned for better treatment from social services.

Aside from the riot there was a lot of insight into transsexual lives - how some of the girls were able to make a living as entertainers but others were forced into prostitution as they were unable to get a proper job.

The stories varied from a bitter old hag who wanted to distance herself from the queers and disgusting drag queens and just be able to get on with life as a normal woman, to the fantastically glamourous Aleshia Brevard (pictured) who talked about how she was able to blossom once she had become a woman. (In her autobiography Aleshia talks about performing her own castration as she was so frustrated at being unable to get an operation performed by the health services.)

Over time, the conflict led to changes in medical provisions and public understanding. People fought to be allowed to have gender realignment surgery and a pivotal role was played by doctor and author Harry Benjamin. He supplied hormones and wrote The Transsexual Phenomenon, a book that brought transsexual medical care into the public forum.

"The Transsexual Phenomenon was like a guidebook for us," said Amanda St Jaymes, "... once you feel good about yourself, no one can hurt you."