1950s: The Daughters of Bilitis

The Daughters of Bilitis was formed in 1955 in San Francisco by Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin. It was named after poet Pierre Louÿs’s The Songs of Bilitis, in which Bilitis was said to be a female lover of Greek poet Sappho. The Daughters of Bilitis was one of the first lesbian organizations ever established in the U.S. Chapters spread across the country and even Australia as the 50s went on. Originally assembled as a meeting place for lesbians, the group also held public forums to teach people about homosexuality and provided support to single and married lesbians as well as lesbian mothers. The group eventually evolved to promoting lesbian rights and lesbian feminist politics. The Daughters of Bilitis shut down in the early 1970s, but is known for its commitment to fostering understanding in and out of the lesbian community and setting a successful example for countless lesbian organizations to come.

1960s: Compton’s Cafeteria Riot

The riot at Gene Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood happened in August 1966. A policeman grabbed a drag queen in an attempt to arrest her and she threw a cup of coffee in his face. A riot began almost immediately, with glass windows smashed by thrown sugar shakers, tables flipped and cutlery thrown. These particular Compton’s customers had had enough. It was by no means unprovoked, either: cops had been arresting drag queens, gay hustlers, and transgender women at the 24-hour eatery regularly for cross-dressing, for obstructing the sidewalk, for any reason they could find to throw them in jail. It didn’t help that Compton’s owners preferred the queens, hustlers, and trans women leave and would call the cops to have them removed. After the incident, the diner banned trans women and the Tenderloin’s largely queer community rebelled, picketing the establishment and breaking its new windows. The Compton’s riot received no coverage at all in any of San Francisco’s publications, but today is recognized for its importance as one of the first queer uprisings against police brutality.

1970s: The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence first emerged in 1979 when four gay men bored with the sameness of San Francisco’s Castro district put on retired nuns’ habits. Realizing their presence could bring joy and initiate social change, they formed an order of queer nuns, The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.

Today, donning drag versions of nuns’ habits, they draw attention to queer discrimination and religious hypocrisy, promote safe sex and educate against the dangerous effects of drug use, all the while raising money for AIDS, LGBTQ+, and community-related causes. Chapters have since expanded across the globe.

1970s: Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR)

Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries, or STAR, was organized by queer historical icons and self-described drag queens Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera. Both had been present at Stonewall and active in the GLF, and decided to organize homeless trans youth, drag queens, sex workers, immigrants, and low-income people in New York. Rivera and Johnson were homeless themselves, and saw STAR as a way to help and provide shelter for the people they knew as their children. They bought a building, fixed it up, provided shelter and clothes for the people who came through. STAR grew from New York to Chicago, California, and even England and lasted for approximately three years before it shut down.

While the riots at Stonewall are of course important, their story starts decades before and continues today. Thanks to people like Henry Gerber, Phyllis Lyon, Sylvia Rivera, Larry Kramer, and countless others, queer activism still has a loud and forceful voice in and out of the community. We owe so much to their legacy. We’ll continue to to speak out in honor of the strides they made for us, and the lives we hope to change in the future.

Illustrated by Amit Greenberg.

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