By S. Asher
The California State Assembly on Sept. 6, 2023, voted to pass a resolution that would make August, starting in 2024, Transgender History Month. “As long as there has been a California, there have been transgender people here,” Assembly Member Matt Haney said at the press conference held by California Assembly Democrats to announce the result of the vote. There has been tracked history of trans people on California soil since 1775. Haney went on to talk about the history of trans people in all cultures. “Trans people have existed and have always existed in every era and in every culture,” says Haney at the press conference.
San Fransico has been celebrating Transgender History Month since 2021, and has been on the forefront of holding safe spaces for trans and gender-nonconforming people for years. The Golden Gate City created the Transgender district in 2017 with the mission to “create an urban environment that fosters the rich history, culture, legacy, and empowerment of transgender people and its deep roots in the southeastern Tenderloin neighborhood.” (The Transgender District). The Transgender District holds events regularly to support trans folk who live in the area. They have an event this Thursday Sept. 28, 2023, to help with getting names and gender markers changed.
California chose August to be the month for celebration because it holds historical value for the state. In 1966 there was a riot in San Francisco called the Compton’s Cafeteria Riots which started from transphobia and the police attempting to make an arrest on a trans woman who then threw her hot coffee at the officer. It was when the resistance against police violence started. This riot was three years before the Stone Wall Riot, which makes Compton’s Cafeteria one of the first resistance riots that Black and Brown trans women lead to fight for trans rights.
