“I want that story to never be forgotten,” Personna said. Personna was not there the night of the riot, but co-wrote a theatrical play about the riot had a limited run in the Tenderloin. It would mark the start of the Compton’s Cafeteria riot. A riot ensued with dishes being broken and items being thrown in the restaurant. One of the women had enough of the harassment and threw a cup of coffee in the officer’s face. On one night in 1966, San Francisco police came to the cafeteria to arrest men for impersonating women. “The cops would go in there routinely and they just want to bust heads and scare people,” she said.
It was a gathering place at night for drag queens, transgender women, and sex workers. Personna was 18 when she first went to Gene Compton’s Cafeteria in the Tenderloin. “The Tenderloin was for the dregs of society.” “There were pimps, there were drug sales,” Personna said.
