2025 NYC Pride Guide - Flipbook - Page 20
1959
1965
Cooper’s Do-Nuts
Dewey’s Restaurant &
The Annual Reminder Days
Los Angeles
Like many early acts of queer community resistance, the Cooper’s Do-Nut
raid in Los Angeles began when cops
harassed young male sex workers and
gender nonconforming patrons at a
coffee shop early one May evening in
1958 or ’59. When they tried to arrest
five people and put them in a single
cop car, onlookers rose up and fought
back, derailing the arrests and driving
the cops away.
1966
Philadelphia
San Francisco
In April and May of 1965, Dewey’s
Restaurant in Philadelphia was protested by gender nonconforming teenagers who refused to leave without
receiving service — likely inspired by
similar sit-ins being done by Black civil
rights activists throughout the segregated South. After the second protest,
which was much larger than the first,
Dewey’s announced they would serve
queer patrons.
Compton’s Cafeteria
The Compton’s Cafeteria Riots in San
Francisco were yet another clash between queer, trans and gender nonconforming restaurant patrons and the
police. But the queer community was
much larger and more organized now,
and in the aftermath of Compton’s, the
National Transsexual Counseling Unit
was formed in 1968 — the first peer-run
counseling program for trans people in
America.
pride and protest:
19
Thanks to the American LGBTQ+ Museum with writing by Hugh Ryan.
New Yo
The Sto
and Up
RESISTANCE IS A HALLMARK OF THE MODERN, POST-WORLDWAR-II QUEER COMMUNITY IN AMERICA. THE STONEWALL
RIOTS AND UPRISING OF 1969 MAY BE THE BEST KNOWN
ACT OF RESISTANCE BY QUEER PEOPLE, BUT FOR DECADES
PRIOR (AND SINCE) IN COMMUNITIES AROUND THE NATION,
QUEER PEOPLE MOBILIZED TO ASSERT OUR RIGHTS AND RESIST OUR ERASURE. ALL THESE EVENTS (AND MANY OTHERS)
HELPED QUEER PEOPLE SEE THEMSELVES AS A
COMMUNITY, WITH SHARED HOPES AND POLITICAL
DEMANDS.
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/19//
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