SF Site of Compton’s Cafeteria Uprising Could Get Expanded Historic Designation

A San Francisco supervisor is aiming to expand the local historic designation of the building that was once home to Compton’s Cafeteria, where one of the first uprisings for transgender rights against police took place in 1966.

The ordinance, proposed by Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, who represents the city’s Transgender District in the Tenderloin, would require city approval for the owners of 111 Taylor St. to make changes to the building’s exterior.

“This is about ensuring that the history of trans resistance in the Tenderloin is preserved with the integrity it deserves,” Mahmood said in a statement. “This legislation ensures our local protections reflect the full significance of the historic Compton’s Cafeteria site.”

Last year, a coalition of transgender activists attempted to oust a private prison corporation that operates a transitional housing facility for people on parole at the site. Their appeal was officially a zoning dispute — the activists alleged that Geo Reentry Services, a subsidiary of Geo Group, was providing services that are more in line with a residential care facility than its zoned use for group housing.

But the deeper root of the appeal was Geo Group’s reputation and business practices. The activists argued that the company, which also operates Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers and is accused by former tenants of running the Tenderloin facility as a prison-like environment, is misaligned with the space’s roots in queer activism.

In the 1960s, the building at the corner of Taylor and Turk streets was home to Gene Compton’s Cafeteria, a late-night diner that was a popular hangout spot for trans women and queer people. Police often raided it, and in August 1966, diners rioted.

The event — three years before the Stonewall Inn Riot in New York City — led to the city being the first in the U.S. to launch social services for the trans community.

The building is now the ending point for the annual Trans March during Pride, and sits at the center of the city’s Transgender District.

Breonna McCree, the co-executive director of the Transgender District, said the building’s current use by Geo Group is “miles from where it should be.”

“It should be a space where trans and nonbinary [people] can come to seek refuge, seek housing, seek shelter,” she told KQED. “It should be a place where trans and nonbinary people can design the space for the youth, because that’s where it all started for San Francisco.”

Ultimately, the city’s Board of Appeals voted 4-1 in favor of Geo Group, with multiple commissioners saying that while they agreed with the activists’ perspective, that wasn’t the question they were required to answer.

“If we had a proposition on the city buying the property and handing it over to the trans community as a community center, I would vote the same way that a lot of folks in this room would,” Commissioner Jose Lopez said at the July 2025 hearing. “But that’s not what’s on the table for us.”

Mahmood said since Geo Group owns the building, the city isn’t able to demand that the company change its use. But the ordinance will ensure that Geo Group is unable to make cosmetic changes to its exterior, preserving, at least, the physical space that’s considered a major landmark for the queer community.

Since 2022, the city has designated the intersection of Turk and Taylor, as well as portions of the building exterior, as a landmark. The building was also added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2025, making it the first federally recognized historic site associated with the transgender rights movement. But activists have said those designations don’t go far enough.

“What we have in terms of landmarking [now] is really a partial landmarking,” Mahmood told KQED. “We really feel that in light of what’s happening in the community that we could lose key historical features, and this is about preventing erasure of the full story of what happened here.”

Mahmood plans to introduce the ordinance on Tuesday, and it will have to go before the Land Use and Transportation Committee in the coming weeks. Mahmood said he hopes the proposal will be heard in late June or early July.

KQED’s Nastia Voynovskaya contributed to this report.