San Francisco rejects initial push to reclaim LGBTQ+ historic site from private prison use

San Francisco leaders rejected a push by transgender activists to stop a private prison takeover of the historic Compton’s Cafeteria riot site.

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The San Francisco Board of Appeals voted 4-1 to reject an attempt by to reclaim the Tenderloin District site, which is currently being used by Geo Group, according to Mission Local. Local advocates had urged city officials to oust the private prison operator and reconsider the zoning on the site, which had been used for transitional housing for 30 years.

Board members offered some support to advocates but encouraged them to contact other city bodies and urge the city’s Board of Supervisors to explore changes to the planning code that allow action.

But Board member Rick Swig ultimately made the motion to reject the reclamation effort and offer “significant encouragement to the [zoning administrator] to continue a path of investigation which may result in enforcement.” Ultimately, the board determined no reason currently exists to overturn the zoning determination on the site.

“I’m with you,” Swig said. “Tonight, however, is not a referendum on the issue of trans housing and rights. I wish it was. It’s not.”

In 1966, when the Taylor Street land served as home to Gene Compton’s Cafeteria, it became the site of a riot by transgender individuals and drag queens in protest of police harassment. After police arrested a drag queen for hurling coffee in the face of a police officer, an uprising broke out in protest of years of unfair enforcement of a city cross-dressing ordinance. The riot preceded the Stonewall riots in New York by almost three years.

Trans advocates in the city argue using the property for prison-related housing runs counter to the significance of the anti-police riots that sparked the modern LGBTQ rights movement.

Activist Chandra Laborde submitted a letter to the board of Appeals calling the current land-use inappropriate and the location “ill-suited to be used by a multibillion-dollar for-profit private prison corporation with a documented history of zoning violations and deep contractual ties to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).”