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(The name Gay Shame is a satirical flip of Gay Pride intended to mock Pride's corporate nature.) Over the last two decades, Gay Shame members have protested real estate developers, political campaigns, businesses and the criminal justice system in creative and sometimes controversial ways. Gay Shame, a loose, secretive coalition of 20 or so queer and trans activists of different ages and ethnic backgrounds, was founded in San Francisco in 2001. Mary Kate continues, "The cops have been leading the way to suppress our expression, suppress our sexualities, suppress our gender and to basically try to shove us in prisons." Activists want 'cops and corporations out of Pride' Both refuse to give their real names, citing Gay Shame's policy of going by "Mary" in the press out of fear of "transphobic violence from cops or others" in retaliation for their activism. After setting up a meeting through an unknown person responding to the Gay Shame email account, I meet her and a colleague "Mary J," a Black trans woman, for coffee in the Mission district. "If you look at all these queer revolts like Stonewall and Compton’s, the biggest agitator has been the cops," says "Mary Kate," a young Asian-American trans woman from Gay Shame. Despite SFPD's efforts to project a gay-friendly image with the roll-out of new rainbow police uniform patches and patrol cars, activists question whether police have any place at Pride, given the long history of police brutality against the queer and trans community. Yet SF Pride 2019 commemorates the Stonewall riots with the theme "Generations of Resistance," and SFPD officers will march in the parade alongside the LGBTQ+ community. The SFPD has yet to make a formal apology for similar actions.
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In a surprise announcement today, New York's police commissioner James O’Neill apologized for the NYPD's treatment of the LGBTQ+ community during the Stonewall era, calling the department's practices and the law "discriminatory and oppressive."
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First gay pride parade san francisco series#
Editor's Note: This article is part of KQED Arts' story series Pride as Protest, which chronicles the past and present of LGBTQ+ activism in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots. Learn more about the series here.Ī lot has changed in the 53 years since the Compton's Cafeteria riot of 1966, when the LGBTQ+ community's frustration at police harassment boiled over into a chaotic skirmish.Īt the time, the San Francisco Police Department had a habit of raiding gay bars and arresting patrons for anachronistic crimes like "female impersonation." When a trans woman threw a coffee cup at a police officer attempting to grab her, SFPD suddenly found themselves on the defense from people who'd had it with their intervention. Three years later at the Stonewall Inn at New York City, queer and trans patrons rioted against police harassment for three consecutive days, sparking the modern-day gay rights movement.