EMMY Award-winning Screaming Queens tells the little-known story of the first known act of collective, violent resistance to the social oppression of queer people in the United States - a 1966 riot in San Francisco's impoverished Tenderloin neighborhood, three years before the famous gay riot at New York's Stonewall Inn.

Screaming Queens introduces viewers to street queens, cops and activist civil rights ministers who recall the riot and paint a vivid portrait of the wild transgender scene in 1960s San Francisco. Integrating the riot's story into the broader fabric of American life, the documentary connects the event to urban renewal, anti-war activism, civil rights and sexual liberation. With enticing archival footage and period music, this unknown story is dramatically brought back to life.

Screaming Queens is a production of Victor Silverman and Susan Stryker produced in association with ITVS and KQED, with funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

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• Northern California EMMY® for Outstanding Achievement, Historical/Cultural Program.
  
  "While the 1969 Stonewall riot is historically considered the catalyst for the gay rights movement, it was not the first act of collective resistance by the gay community against an oppressive society...In August 1966, a police raid on Compton's Cafeteria in San Francisco's Tenderloin district erupted into a violent conflict between law enforcement and the establishment's predominantly transgendered clientele. The aftermath ushered in a new era of tolerance for the transgendered community in San Francisco, while also creating a nascent political network that addressed a wide range of gay issues (the 1966 riot was not just about social equality but also economic equality - some of the Compton's Cafeteria rioters made their living as prostitutes in the seedy Tenderloin because of blatant discrimination in job hiring, housing, and social services assistance). Combining archival footage together with interviews of both the cross-dressers and the police at the scene of the riot, Screaming Queens provides a fascinating chronicle of an overlooked chapter in the civil rights struggle for a truly egalitarian society. Highly recommended. Editor's Choice. Audience: Colleges and universities, public libraries."
        -Video Librarian
  
  "Some drag performers may regard their acts as a satire of femininity, or as a form of social criticism. Others may view it as entertainment, an art form, or simply fun...[Screaming Queens] shows how in just two short years transgender activism helped transform San Francisco culture in subtle and profound ways and presents reflective comments from the Compton's Cafeteria subjects who bravely ushered in a controversial revolution that continues today. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED"
        -EMRO (Educational Media Reviews Online)
  
  "If there was one film I'd want to show to my students to inspire them both to do and to make history, Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton's Cafeteria is it (and it clocks just under an hour!).  Transgender historian and activist Susan Stryker dives into the archives and emerges with a story about the first collective militant queer resistance to police harassment, not at the Stonewall Bar in New York in 1969, but at Gene Compton's Cafeteria in the heart of San Francisco's Tenderloin district.  It's a story that is at the foundation of everything from glam rock to lesbian separatism, gay struggles based on civil rights activism to squatters and housing rights agitation (and therefore right for classes in everything from cinema to political theory).  It's also a story of unlikely heroes and heroines, putting passion and power at the center of an emergent queer historiography."
         -Amy  Villarejo, Associate Professor in Film, Director of the Feminist, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Program, Cornell University
  
  "Stryker and Silverman have here triumphantly intervened in queer theory and queer history with their brilliant archival work and their careful elaboration of the relations between gender, sexuality and all the other differences that structure the world differently for different individuals at different times and in different places. A truly great scholarly putting-to-use of the moving image documentary format, this tape's investigation of being something - that is, "trans" - before it was essentially possible, makes it of the utmost relevance to gender theory, queer theory and sexuality studies today. A terrific investigation of the multiplicity of power relations that surround any historical event, with fantastic use of archival materials, Screaming Queens is a wonderfully refreshing corrective to Stonewall-centric U.S. LGBTQ history."
        -Richard Cante, Media & Cultural Studies and Program in Sexuality Studies, University of North Carolina
  
  "Screaming Queens is a fascinating and excellent film about an important event in transgender history. I have used the film in my classroom, and my students were uniformly engaged and interested. I recommend it very highly to anyone interested in or teaching about sex and gender issues."
        -Miqqi Alicia Gilbert, PhD [aka Michael A. Gilbert], Department of Philosophy, York University
  
  "Screaming Queens should be a mandatory part of every inclusive classroom curriculum. Stryker and Silverman's masterful documentary uncovers a little known, yet incredibly powerful part of LGBTQ history. This film is a story about hope, possibility, and justice that makes history come alive for students and scholars alike. The voices from our distant past will inspire viewers to uncover and reclaim their own histories and narrate other stories that have yet to be told."
        -Kristopher Wells, Associate Editor, Journal of LGBT Youth, University of Alberta
  
  
  
  

Trailer - Screaming Queens from Frameline on Vimeo.