Happy Pride: The First Pride Was a Riot & No Pride Without Sex Workers

June is Pride Month for the queer community. The timing commemorates the Stonewall Riots, a string of riots at New York City’s Stonewall Inn that started on June 28, 1969. On this Friday night, a time when the bar would have been packed, police planned a raid of the bar to arrest patrons for things like same-sex displays of affection, same-sex dancing, and the “three article rule” or masquerade laws. The latter was that someone had to wear three articles of clothing corresponding to their assigned gender, or else they were crossdressing, which was against the law. There had been previous raids, but at less busy times. By the time this one rolled around, the people were not going to take it.

With over 200 people at the bar this night, the police’s standard practices of lining everyone up, checking IDs, and even taking people to the bathroom for genital checks (sound familiar?), was not going to work. No one cooperated. A crowd formed outside the bar. At first, everything was calm, with the crowd singing “We Shall Overcome” and shouting cries of solidarity. Then, the riot broke out after an officer pushed someone in drag, who then hit him with her purse. The officer responded by using his club on her. As tension grew, people came from the surrounding area to see what was happening. The crowd grew to at least 500 people, all there to stand against the cops and push back against discriminatory police brutality against the LGBT community.

This night inspired immediate action from the neighborhood and from New York’s gay community, which in turn inspired national movements. The following year, on June 28th, 1970, the anniversary of the first night of the riot, the first gay pride marches happened in New York and LA.

San Francisco’s Compton Cafeteria Riots

Several years before, in 1966, the Compton Cafeteria Riots took place in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District. At this time, Compton’s Cafeteria was a popular social meeting place for the trans community. During the 1960s, many trans people had trouble finding regular employment, so they turned to sex work. Compton’s was an ideal place because it was open late, so people could meet there after working.

Unfortunately, the management of Compton’s was not always accepting. Staff called police, resulting in many arrests of trans women. At that time, crossdressing was illegal. The trans women could get arrested simply for having a shirt with buttons on the opposite side from a man’s shirt, let alone wearing a more feminine garment like a dress. Many were arrested for “female impersonation” or for sex work.

A local trans activist group, Vanguard, often used Compton’s as a meeting place. They were barred from the restaurant, leading to a boycott and protest in July 1966. The next month, a Compton’s employee called police on trans patrons. When the police came, they violently tried to arrest a trans woman who then threw her coffee into the officer’s face. From there, a riot ensued, forcing the police to retreat back to the street. It is considered the first “collective militant queer resistance to police harassment” according to Susan Stryker, a historian who focuses on LGBTQ history.

There were countless other riots and demonstrations before Stonewall and even before Compton’s. In 1959 in LA, queer patrons of Coopers Do-Nuts threw donuts and coffee at police to protest unfair arrests and harrassment. In 1965 in Philadelphia, more than 150 LGBTQ people did a sit-in at Dewey’s restaurant because they refused to serve gay people, crossdressers, and trans people. And of course, there have been countless riots and protests after Stonewall.

The First Pride Was a Riot

These examples are what we mean when we say “the first pride was a riot.” It literally was.

To me, it’s also what we mean when we say “be gay, do crimes.” Some people find that a silly, lighthearted phrase about petty crime. But I feel it means being prepared to fight for your identity and for that of your neighbor, especially those who are more marginalized than you, whose existence is being made illegal.

Pride celebrations have become corporate-washed rainbow-covered parties. And there’s nothing wrong with that—celebration and mainstream support are good for the queer community. But, it’s useful to remember the origins as we are entering a new era with increased oppression for many queer people. It’s a good time to ponder: What are you willing to do for yourself and your community?

Queer and Sex Worker Liberation

Many of our queer activist icons, particularly trans women of color who fought for our liberation, such as Marcia P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, and Miss Major, turned to sex work as a way to make ends meet during a time when they were not accepted. Other, more recent queer activists Danny Cockerline, Carol Leigh, Margo St. James, and others, focused more on sex worker rights in their activism work. Whatever the focus, it’s clear that queer rights and sex worker rights are deeply intertwined. Additionally, the stories of some queer celebrities, like Janet Mock, show how these two struggles are connected.

We can also see this in the current political situation. Laws, rules, and regulations about online content are being created to suppress the spread of porn, but they are also being used to suppress the spread of information and resources for LGBTQ+ people. Project 2025 has a stated goal of defining LGBTQ material as pornographic, especially materials relating to transgender identities. You can easily see where this can go.

Because of censorship on social media, largely put in place to combat porn and other sex work related things, our vocabulary is changing. You can’t even say the word sex on social media anymore, so people are resorting to saying “shrex” or “spicy sleep.” These terms are infiltrating our daily speech patterns. It may seem like a silly quirk now, but there is a big potential domino effect down the line. Now it’s sex, later it may be something related to your identity.

Not every sex worker is queer. And not every queer person is a sex worker. But our struggles are intrinsically linked.