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SF’s Black Trans Lives Matter Mural May Soon Be a Historic Landmark

The iconic mural commemorated the 54th Anniversary of the Compton’s Cafeteria Riots using the colors of the transgender flag
By - posted 6/23/2022 No Comment

Thanks to San Francisco Heritage for sharing the news that San Francisco’s Black Trans Lives Matter Mural is on its way to becoming a historic landmark.

Since August 2020, Turk & Taylor has been the site of the Black Trans Lives Matter Mural, a visual demonstration calling for awareness of the alarming violence perpetrated against transgender women, and disproportionately impacting Black transgender women.

On June 7, 2022, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors adopted a resolution initiating landmark designation for the intersection of Turk Street and Taylor Street, situated within the Transgender District.

The intersection is a key monument in the Tenderloin neighborhood and for the cultural district, witnessing the first documented uprising of trans and queer people in August of 1966 known as the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot. Taking place three years before the Stonewall Inn Riots, which is regarded as the quintessential event for the gay liberation movement, the revolutionary event, the landmark ordinance argues, “deserves recognition as a seminal event in the history of transgender liberation.”

Recognizing symbols and monuments significant to transgender liberation and activism can support and empower a community that struggles for equitable representation in documented history, and landmarking can further raise social and historical awareness, educational opportunities, and economic investment in a neighborhood that has memorialized a prominent transgender presence.

Photo Credit: Gareth Gooch – Web / FB / Insta