So there I was at the annual Trans March, tens of thousands joining a festival-parade-march honoring and remembering a trans/queer uprising against police harassment and violence in 1966. The Compton’s Cafeteria riot was one of the earliest uprisings that opened space for a radical gay liberation movement to blossom…

But then suddenly, here in San Francisco, in 2026, 60 years later, the cops violently attacked the march, aggressively throwing young trans and queer folks into the pavement.

Within minutes there were 20 then 30 cop cars, sirens blaring, frothing cops yelling at us, batons in hand ready to strike, aggressively and angrily pushing queers out of their way. Multiple cops with tear gas rifles pointed at the crowd.

We yelled back, tried to protect each other, and held the street as multiple folks who’d left home for a celebratory trans-uplifting street party were now being violently wrestled into submission and packed into cop cars.

After we pressured the cops to leave, some folks left to find their captured friends and do jail support. The rest of us regrouped, shaken but united, and were extremely lucky to witness the extraordinary aerial dance-music performance by BodyStorm. Whiplashed emotionally from witnessing anti trans violence into being uplifted and held by trans brilliance, creativity, and solidarity, we cheered and cried and relaxed.

The sickening irony of turning a rare safe spot for trans and gender disobedient folks into a violent street battle at the exact site where 60 years ago the queers and queens finally fought back against ongoing police harassment and violence. Compton’s had been a mostly safe space for trans, drag, gay, queer folks and their friends that was frequently disrupted by cops. The Compton’s riot, followed by the Stonewall riot in New York 3 years later, are foundational to LGBTQ+ movement and becoming.

Today’s news asserts the police narrative that a mob attacked the cops when it was clearly the opposite. The main media repeats a lie that 2 cops were injured but does not address the unjustified violence that cops enacted against many of us. This kind of “news” that tells us not to believe what we saw or what first person reports describe is older than 60 years. Anyone who has been beaten by cops knows that they will be accused of attacking police. But the past three years of Israeli-US mass murder of Palestinians has made this corporate media narrative spin abundantly clear to the newest generation of queers and activists.

Huge thanks to trans and queer people everywhere, and our trans kin in all cultures since the beginning of time, and the trans folks of tomorrow who will continue to dance and sing and fight and care.