"I had these little hot pants on before hot pants was even in style. When I was around maybe seven or eight, I was wearing hot pants, girl."
When I was a hustler, I was a boy. When I was in a relationship, I was a girl. I had to have a man with me. I may go down on him and stuff like that, but as far as me playing a man's part on my love of my life or my boyfriend? Never. I would drop him right there and then, because I didn't want another girl with me. I wanted a man.I met this guy. He was an older man. He was married, but he used to like to play with young boys, so he picked me up, and became my sugar daddy. I played the man part because he was older and he liked young boys. I go, "Hey, it's money. Money that I don't have, and I'm too young to work." He would take me to Santa Cruz. He would take me all over the state. One day, he took me to San Francisco. I was around 15 or 16."When I was a hustler, I was a boy. When I was in a relationship, I was a girl."
The only way that they could make money is by selling drugs or selling themselves, because they wouldn't hire us because we were too feminine. You couldn't work in San Francisco because a lot of people would be jealous and out you. You know what I mean?Compton's Cafeteria was the center of the universe for us. It was a place where we could make sure that we had lived through the night. It was like a society club—it was cheap food, cheap coffee, cheap breakfast. Windows on both sides on one corner of Taylor Street and the other corner of Turk Street was nothing but windows. You could see who was coming in, who was coming out, and who was there and who wasn't. A lot of times, Compton's was a revolving door.People came in, did what they did; if they liked it, they stayed, if not, they went about their business to another state or back home or wherever, because a lot of the kids that came into the Tenderloin at the time was kids who were thrown out. And a lot of the kids came from broken homes. The kids came to start a new identity and a new life and forget about the past. A lot of times we didn't know where they came from or their real names, because as soon as they came into the Tenderloin, they would change their names. Like Gypsy or Greta or Vicky or Alexis.So then I went back to San Jose, and I had just broken up with my lover and I told my mother I was gonna run away and she would never see me again. And then I just said, "Well, you know something? I'm going to join the military.""Compton's Cafeteria was the center of the universe for us."
So, I moved in with Larry, he was one of my girlfriend's boyfriend. He was a martial artist, and we moved to Chicago. He didn't want me to stay there, all that time at home by myself. So later on that year, we went to the movies to see that Christine Jorgensen movie. And I thought that, Oh my god, that's who I am! How the hell am I gonna get there? Being in my twenties and whatnot, I had no money, no future, no nothing."Compton's was a place where you could go and you could see whether some girls had stayed, some girls had left, some people had been killed, raped, put in jail."
I applied for [the company insurance to cover] my surgery, and about four months later they approved me and three other kids that worked at the telephone company to do the surgery.The company gave me all of the time that I needed to recuperate. They paid my wages. Years later, after I'd been married, my boyfriend David, I married him. I stayed in San Jose working for the telephone company from 1972 or 73 when I first got hired, ‘til 1992 or ‘93.Wow! So that was a really stable job for you.Yeah. Because I was a girl now. And I was happy. And nobody could tell me anything, you know what I mean? So in 1987, I became HIV positive. And I joined the ARIS Project and volunteered. I wanted to make sure that the trans community was involved because we needed a community.So I started volunteering, and I made the first AIDS memorial quilt for Michael Burnay, a mother that had just lost her son. And we all gathered together, and they organized it, and I sewed every little piece by hand; that was my first one. I've made eighty something quilts by now.I moved to San Francisco in 1993, because the best possibility of surviving AIDS was the mecca of the medical center of everything. I worked for The Shanti Project for years. I worked for Project Open Hand for years. I worked for the LGBT community center for years."My community who started the gay movement in San Jose and started the gay movement here in the Tenderloin will never be forgotten."
All of my friends passed—died. All the people that, years before us, came and they were killed and murdered and thrown in jail because they were queers.“Gay” was the word that we used in the diction for all of us. We weren’t lesbian, gay, queer, whatever, transgender, whatever. We were gay. We were a community. We weren't silent. We were together. Now that they have it in little boxes, we can't get in here. We're not allowed to go into the little boxes. Do you know what I mean?One more thing, too, I think that the “transgender” umbrella is a joke.Why?How can we ever unite when everybody's got their own little piece of the puzzle, you know what I mean?Transgender is before surgery. Transsexual is after surgery. That should be it. You can do whatever you want to with whatever sexual you are, but don't name it because that destroys the unity of our whole existence.What were some of the things that helped you survive those difficult times?I don't know how I survived at Tenderloin. I really don't. Because it was bad, but Compton's was the center of the universe for us."I am your history. You can never change that no matter what you do to me."
That's why I tell the kids: I am your history. You can never change that no matter what you do to me. I was the number one person putting Gene Compton’s Cafeteria historical plaque on the 100 block of Taylor Street.This year, we had our 52nd anniversary of [the] Compton's Cafeteria [riot] and the person that runs that building actually walked into Compton's Cafeteria. I mean, it's not “Cafeteria” anymore—it's transitional housing for criminals. We walked into that door and I cried. I cried because the people that walked in through those doors, whatever became of them, or whatever their future, they came through here. They came through those revolving doors of Compton's, where it was the center of the universe because we had nowhere else to go. The end.