This powerful documentary recounts the little known story of a 1966 riot in San Francisco's Tenderloin district that sparked and inspired a wave of transgender activism for human rights. Using archival footage and recent interviews, Screaming Queens gives us a look into the difficult lives of a marginalized community and the sociopolitical climate that led these spirited "queens" to organize and fight back.

Through compelling footage and candid interviews, Screaming Queens reminds us of the universal desire to belong and the serious repercussions of being different. Excluded from most aspects of society, transgender street workers recall prostituting to fulfill monetary, as well as emotional needs. This illicit and dangerous activity was one of the few available avenues to the acceptance they craved. In an era where wearing mascara or dressing femininely could land you in jail, life as a transgender person wasn't just hard, it was dangerous.

While discrimination and harassment were nothing new to the transgender community, one hot night in August, three years before the more famous Stonewall Inn riot in New York (popularly believed to have launched the GLBT rights struggle), local San Franciscan transgender prostitutes took a stand and struck back. It would be the first documented collective "queer resistance" to police harassment. Overpowering police with their high heel shoes and heavy purses, these rioters kicked off a new movement for human rights.

Sunday, 6/22/08 from 12:30-1:30 a.m. ET

Victor Silverman
Susan Stryker

2005