Trans leaders recognized during Lurie flag raising event

Presiding over his first official flag raising ceremony for Transgender History Month at San Francisco City Hall, Mayor Daniel Lurie recognized local transgender leaders. Speakers used the occasion to reflect on the city’s past trans activism, acknowledge local organizations that provide support, and honor members of the trans community.

“The world, as it always has, is looking to us to be the beacon for the trans community. San Francisco remains steadfast – we will continue to stay true to our history and cherish our trans community for making San Francisco the city we know and love today,” Lurie said at the August 5 event.

Lurie, fellow city leaders, and others gathered on the mayor’s balcony on the second floor of City Hall. It came a little over a month after the freshman mayor was met with heckling from attendees at the annual Trans March in late June that kicked off Pride weekend in San Francisco and shortly thereafter left.

“As the trans flag flies over City Hall, let it remind us of how far we've come and how much further we have to go to show up for each other, fight for each other and care for each other,” the mayor said.

Trans activist Jupiter Peraza , who spearheaded the effort to bring Transgender History Month into fruition, said she was interpreting this year’s commemoration “within the context of what we are experiencing as a multifaceted and nonmonolithic community.” 

“Many of us cannot afford to remain silent. We must wake up every single day and fight for society to recognize our humanity, not only because we are trans, but because we are also immigrants,” she said.

Peraza, a trans woman and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipient, moved from Sanora, Mexico to San Francisco 10 years ago to attend San Francisco State University. She’s on the Office of Trans Initiatives’ Trans Advisory Committee and LGBTQ senior service provider Openhouse’s manager of statewide coalition.

“No piece of legislation will ever strip us of our truth. No amount of policing will extinguish the eternal flame of our trans identity within. Nurture that flame,” Peraza told the crowd. “Build your power in your pride, because they might take everything, but they would never be able to take away that.”

This year marks the fifth annual Transgender History Month in San Francisco. Following then-mayor London Breed’s signing of the first-of-its-kind proclamation for the city on August 24, 2021, August was later proclaimed Transgender History Month in the state of California in September 2023, and first officially recognized in 2024, as the Bay Area Reporter previously reported . 

The designation honors the Compton's Cafeteria riot that occurred in August 1966 in the Tenderloin, at the corner of Turk and Taylor streets. The former Gene Compton’s Cafeteria was where one night – the exact date is lost to time – a drag queen reportedly threw a cup of hot coffee in the face of the police officer who tried to arrest her without a warrant. This was the culmination of years of trans and gender-nonconforming patrons facing targeted police violence at the diner, according to “Screaming Queens,” a 2005 documentary about the riot made by Susan Stryker, Ph.D., a trans academic and professor emerita at University of Arizona. Stryker is now a visiting professor at Stanford’s Clayman Institute.

Recent efforts to reclaim the historic site at 111 Taylor Street from its current occupant, the Florida-based private prison operator GEO Group , have been unsuccessful, as the B.A.R. reported . The GEO Group has run a  reentry facility for people released from incarceration out of the site for 36 years.

Earlier this year, 111 Taylor Street became the first property granted federal landmark status specifically for its connection to the transgender movement in the U.S. In 2022, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors declared the intersection in front of Compton’s and the exterior walls of 111 Taylor Street as the city’s 307th landmark .

For Madeleine Lim , executive director of Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project , attending the ceremony was a means to celebrate what the monthlong recognition entails.

“As one of the speakers mentioned, transgender history is American history, and we cannot be erased from the history books,” she said, referring to remarks by Breonna McCree, a woman of trans experience who is co-executive director of the Transgender District.

For Lim, a queer woman of color in her 60s, President Donald Trump’s executive orders directed at LGBTQ individuals, such as “ Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government ,” and other anti-LGBTQ measures by the administration warrant uniting in the face of adversity.

“With the current federal administration and all of the executive orders that have passed, with the attempt to erase LGBTQ history from national parks, from monuments, even from the military, I think that it is more important than ever to stand together and to celebrate all of the ways that we are – and all of the representations of the LGBTQ communities,” said Lim, who lives in San Francisco.

San Francisco resident Brooke Oliver was also among the large crowd that attended the event.

“It's well worth stopping everything you're doing in the middle of a work day to come and pay honor to our city and to our trans community, recognized for the rest of the month,” Oliver, 69, said.

Oliver, a lesbian, is senior counsel at Procopio law firm. She was the lead attorney on the Dykes on Bikes trademark cases (2007, 2017) that went before the U.S. Supreme Court. The motorcycle group prevailed.

“San Francisco’s approach to the trans community is safe and welcoming and so refreshing compared to what's happening in the rest of the nation,” she said.

Lurie noted that trans communities throughout the country are under attack and spoke of the necessity to protect the rights of trans individuals amid the nearly 1,000 anti-trans bills introduced in Congress and state capitals. 

“One hundred and twenty of them have passed into law,” he said. “These bills target almost every aspect of trans lives, from health care and education to access to public spaces.”

“This month, we celebrate the trans community, and we also acknowledge that celebration is not enough,” he added. 

At the ceremony, speakers referenced myriad San Francisco organizations in place to support the trans and immigrant communities, including Lyon-Martin Community Health Services, the LGBT Asylum Project, El/La Para TransLatinas, the Transgender Advocates for Justice and Accountability (TAJA’s) Coalition, and the Transgender Gender-Variant & Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP).

“This is the only city in the world with an office led by and for transgender people,” Lurie noted, referring to San Francisco’s Office of Transgender Initiatives. “We continue to invest in critical programs and services to protect this community,” Lurie said.

The contributions of trans ancestors and current activists, such as Stryker, Ms. Billie Cooper, the late Marsha P. Johnson, Janetta Johnson, Andrea Horne and the late Adela Vázquez were also recognized.

“Trans people exist and have existed throughout space and time and are an integral part of our global histories, our cultures, and our families,” said Honey Mahogany, executive director of the San Francisco Office of Transgender Initiatives.

Mahogany, a Black queer trans person, was awarded a City and County of San Francisco Certificate of Honor at the ceremony. She co-founded the Transgender District with Johnson and Aria Sa’id in 2017 and was the district’s first director. (Sa’id succeeded Mahonagy as director until her departure in 2023. The aforementioned McCree and Carlo Gomez Arteaga, a trans man, now helm the cultural district.)