Around the globe-including in many cities and states across America-there are ongoing efforts to deny and strip rights from LGBTQ+ communities, especially trans people. While times have changed, they still haven’t changed enough. Prior to the Stonewall Uprising, similar demonstrations protesting police brutality towards LGBTQ+ communities occurred at Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district in 1966 and at Silver Lake’s Black Cat Tavern in 1967.
When the non-profit Christopher Street West put on the planet’s first-ever permitted parade advocating for gay rights in June of 1970, it was just a year after the police raid of Greenwich Village gay bar the Stonewall Inn, which led to days of escalating violence, protests, riots, and the beginnings of a widespread and interconnected gay liberation movement.
