Pages

▼

27 January 2016

Tony Briffa (1971 - ) engineer, mayor, foster parent, activist

Briffa's parents were emigrants from Malta. When he was born, in Altona, Victoria, outside Melbourne, doctors were unsure of his sex, although the twin sister was definitely a girl. They recommended, as was the practice then, that, as he lacked the male signifier, he be raised as a girl, Antoinette.

Antoinette went to a Catholic all-girls school. She was subjected to a gonadectomy at age 7 – the parents were told that the organs were cancerous. She was on female hormones from age 11. The frequent visits to hospital made her feel like a freak. From age 12 Antoinette was telling the doctors that she was not a girl, and did not want breasts.

By age 18 she had seen her medical records. She did an engineering degree, one of only two women in the year:
"Well, there was one woman, 49 men and then there was me".
She married an understanding man, but they quickly divorced, although on good terms. Briffa worked as an aviation maintenance engineer, and at 26 she was having relationships with women, identifying as a lesbian:
"That wasn't comfortable either, because to be a lesbian, you actually need to be a woman".
At 29 Briffa found a website for intersex women. From this and what she gained from doctors she realized that she had Partial Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (PAIS), not complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, and her body would have masculinised to some extent if medical intervention had not been imposed.
"Doctors made me 5 feet 2 inches (1.58m) on purpose. My estimated height (if I'd been left alone) was between 5 feet 8 and 5 feet 10, and that was considered far too tall for a girl. So now, I'm a very short man. It's something I always feel inadequate about".
Briffa had to come out as intersex and appear on Nine Network's 60 Minutes before being able to get a prescription for testosterone, which was needed to compensate for what would have naturally happened.  Briffa was given an advance copy of the program to show to the family before the broadcast.

Doctors tried to impose a psychiatric assessment as they would for a transsexual.
“They tried to get me to go through the trans process which I completely refused. For a start, I’m not trans and they didn’t have my approval for what they did to me previously and so I wasn’t going to jump through hoops for them to give me what my body naturally had.”
At 30 Briffa decided to live as a man, had the Victorian register of births, deaths and marriages recognize him as male, and changed his name to Anthony. However his birth certificate does not specify a sex.
"It was an interesting experiment but I realised I'm not male - I'm part male and I certainly can't have a relationship as a man. I wasn't socialised as a male, I didn't grow up male and I don't relate to a partner that way, so as Anthony I didn't have any relationships."
“I never had an issue with being raised as a girl, it was all the secrecy, the lies and all the surgeries that were done without my consent that I have an issue with. Atypical genitalia isn’t going to kill a kid, but doing surgery on kids just to make them look male or female and furthermore to make them heterosexual males or females is just unethical and it’s a breach of their human rights.”
Briffa became the public face of intersex in Australia, and also the full-time foster parent to two siblings, a girl and a boy. He ran in Altona for the Greens in the 2002 Victoria State Election and came third with 9%. He did local activism, to save a local park, and then became co-convener of a residents' association.

From 2002-12 Briffa worked in auditing airworthyness, first for the Department of Defence, and then for the Federal Police. Following the local activism, in 2008 Briffa ran for and was elected to the council in Hobsons Bay (which includes Altona). A year later he was deputy mayor, and in 2011, mayor. He is also a Justice of the Peace. In the 2012 Pride March in Victoria, Briffa marched in Mayoral robes. Briffa served for six years in all.

Briffa also served as President of the Genetic Support Network of Victoria, Vice-president of Organization Intersex International Australia and as President of the Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome Support Group Australia.

While Mayor, Tony had met a woman, Manja, a teacher, and they wished to marry. Because of how Briffa is registered in Victoria, they could have married pretending to be a heterosexual couple, but Manja is lesbian, and Tony wished to be open as not being male or female. This was not possible in Australia, but is allowed in New Zealand since 2013, where they did marry that year. Tony is annoyed with Australian Marriage Equality in that what they are campaigning for excludes some intersex people.

Briffa has returned to working in aviation engineering.
EN.Wikipedia    Briffa.org    LinkedIn

Time: 1 comment:

26 January 2016

José de la Riva-Agüero y Osma (1885–1944) writer, politician.

Riva-Agüero, descended from the first Peruvian President José de la Riva Agüero y Sánchez-Boquete, was educated at the National University of San Marcos and the University of Lima. He became a professor of history at San Marcos.

He joined the army for the wars against Bolivia 1909 and Ecuador 1910, but was never on active duty. In 1915, he was a co-founder of the moderate Democratic National Party. After the July 1919 coup Riva-Agüero went to Europe for 11 years where he read authors on the radical Catholic right such as Charles Maurras.

He returned to Peru in 1930. He was mayor of Lima, 1931-2, and then appointed Chairman of the Council of Ministers and Minister of Education and Worship in 1933 by president Óscar R. Benavides. Riva-Agüero resigned six months later over the mutual consent divorce law which he regarded as un-Catholic. He was Dean of the Lima Bar Association, 1936 (despite having never practiced law), and Director of the Peruvian Academy of Language, 1934-44.

Riva-Agüero chaired the Catholic Acción Patriótica, which supported the presidential candidacy of Manuel Villarán. He later renamed it the Peruvian Fascist Brotherhood. Initially he declared his support for fascism in Italy and Spain, but he lost support as he also became anti-semitic and supported the Nazis.

He insisted that he be addressed with the family title of Marquis of Aulestia and was generally seen as arrogant. He also started appearing at public functions dressed as female.

He was ignored after Peru joined the allies in 1942, especially as he continued to write in defence of the Axis powers.

He died of a stroke at age 59. He had never married and bequeathed his estate to the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú.

EN.Wikipedia    WorldCat    ES.Wikipedia
Time: No comments:

21 January 2016

Sonia Burgess (1947 – 2010) lawyer

David Burgess was born in Castleford, West Yorkshire. His mother was a secondary-school headmistress, but he never knew his father. He went to boarding school in Skipton, and then to Cambridge University where he met Robert Winstanley and gained an upper second in law in 1969. He was already openly bisexual.

In 1975 Winstanley Burgess Solicitors opened in offices above a pizza restaurant opposite Islington Town Hall. Burgess had already been doing voluntary work for the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, and rapidly began to build his reputation in immigration law, working especially with Tamil and Kurd refugees, and the firm moved to larger offices.

Stephen Whittle describes a visit:
“I had expected a London lawyer to work in a fancy building, with polished furniture, and rich carpets. Instead I entered a dark, dingy, decaying building on the East London Road, where dirty magnolia woodchip papered stud wall partitions, with holes where they had been torn and kicked in frustration by the firm’s clients, and which looked as if they would collapse at any moment. Inside that den of iniquity, there seemed to be hundreds of grey people hanging out, hoping for a bob or two, or a cup of tea whilst they waited for the British Government to decide on their lives. Rarely did money change hands. Sonia, supported by her legal partner Robert Winstanley and backed by an army of pro-bono law students, mostly gave away her services.”
By this time Burgess was experimenting in going out as Sonia. For a while he had a relationship with a Chinese man, whom he took home to Castleford.

In 1979 Burgess acted on behalf of Mark Rees so that he could change his legal gender. This was taken as far as the European Court of Human Right (ECHR) in 1986, but his petition was finally denied.

In 1985 David married a Tibetan refugee who worked as a nurse. They had two children, and adopted the wife's 7-year-old niece. The wife knew of and accepted that David was also Sonia.

In 1987 a group of 52 Sri Lankan Tamil asylum seekers were refused entry on arrival at the UK border. Burgess intervened to stop their deportation, using the only in-country legal remedy then available, a judicial review of the decision to reject the asylum claim. Burgess won the case in the court of appeal, but lost in the House of Lords, and the men were returned to Sri Lanka. The next year Burgess and a colleague travelled to Sri Lanka, traced the 52 men and documented the ill-treatment they had suffered since their return. This permitted an out-of-country appeal and the men were subsequently accepted as refugees and allowed into the UK. Burgess did lose this case when it reached the ECHR in 1991, but the case highlighted the inadequacy of judicial review being the only in-country challenge to a refusal of entry, and the law was later changed.

Burgess represented the Sri Lankan Viraj Mendis who sought sanctuary in the Church of the Ascension in Hulme, Manchester, before being deported in 1989.

In 1991 a Tibetan official who was visiting London as part of a Chinese delegation decided to defect and Burgess provided accommodation for several weeks until asylum was granted.

The same year, Burgess was brought in at the last moment in the case of M, a teacher from Zaire, who was actually on a plane at Heathrow and about to be deported. Burgess filed a new asylum application and understood that he had received an undertaking from the government solicitor that deportation would be stayed. Officials phoned Heathrow, but were put through to the wrong terminal, and M was flown to Zaire. On discovering this, Burgess phoned the judge at home at midnight, who ordered that arrangements be made to fly M back to the UK. However the Conservative Home Secretary Kenneth Baker interfered to cancel the arrangements. At this point M disappeared, probably fleeing to another African country. Burgess began contempt of court proceedings against the Home Secretary and pursued the case to the House of Lords, which ruled against the government. Baker was spared a fine, but was ordered to pay costs.
“It would be a black day for the rule of law and the liberty of the subject if ministers were not accountable to the courts for their personal actions”.
This has been described as the most significant constitutional case for 200 years in that no previous serving minister had been so chastised. In the House of Commons, Jeremy Corbyn, Labour MP for Islington North, and future leader of the Labour Party, criticized the Home Secretary for putting M's life at risk.

After the transsexual action group, Press For Change, was founded in 1992, Burgess acted as their solicitor.

However Burgess was first and foremost a human rights lawyer, and if she had transitioned at that time would have lost credibility and career.

In 1992 Burgess acted on behalf of Stephen Whittle's eldest child, referred to as 'Z' and argued that Stephen should be on her birth certificate as 'parent'. This took four years to get to the ECHR, and although they technically lost, the ECHR did recognise Stephen, his wife and children as a family.

In 1996 Burgess' partner, Robert Winstanley, who had specialised in criminal defence work, was made a judge. They parted on good terms, but Winstanley had been the more business oriented, and his departure coincided with government changes to legal aid that required more documentation that Burgess found irksome.

In that year Burgess acted for Karamjit Singh Chahal, an alleged Sikh militant facing deportation to India, where he claimed he would be at risk of torture. Burgess travelled to India and collected four volumes of cogent evidence, while the Attorney General had only a thin file of press cuttings. The ECHR ruled against deportation, that the risk of torture is absolute, even for those who may pose a security risk to the UK. This precedent prevented the deportation of accused terrorists rounded up after 9/11.

While David and wife had kept the existence of Sonia from the children, one night in a restaurant with another trans woman, Sonia realised that she had been recognised by another parent from her son's school. She forced herself to tell the son, and got the reaction:
“I thought you were really the most boring person I had ever known, thank god there is something interesting at last”.
After that the family was open and both as Sonia and David she was accepted. Sonia semi-transitioned in the early 2000s. By that time she was able to work part time, and was recognised by the courts as an expert in immigration law. Her appearance had become androgynous, and many lawyers and judges knew of her as Sonia.

However the firm was in financial problems and her back was giving her a bad time. The firm folded in 2003. Burgess was burned out from years of representing clients traumatised by rape and torture, and by the political and media abuse heaped on asylum seekers. He spent time in Tibet learning the language. After returning to the UK Mr and Mrs Burgess agreed to separate, and in 2008 they were divorced. A flat was found in Cambridge Circus, on the edge of Soho, where Sonia could be herself, and was considering facial surgery and breast implants.
Sonia

Burgess did not stay away from refugee work, and began working for the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, and also for a law firm in north London, where her Sonia identity was an open secret.

Sonia met 34-year-old Nina (Senthooran) Kanagasingham, probably in a nightclub.. Nina was a trans asylum seeker from Sri Lanka who had been in the UK since 2000. On 25 October 2010 they were at Kings Cross tube station, after visiting Nina's doctor, when Tina, probably in despair at the inhumane immigration system, lashed out and Sonia was under the train.

Sonia's funeral was held at St Martin-in-the Fields, Trafalgar Square on 17 November, attended by around 600 persons, a mixture of lawyers, former asylum seekers and trans persons. The three children delivered a eulogy about the father they had known, slipping easily between female and male pronouns.

Kanagasingham was charged with murder, and remanded in Wandsworth men's prison.

Kanagasingham pleaded guilty to manslaughter on grounds of diminished responsibility because of schizophrenia, and chose to be referred to as a man and by his male name during the trial. He was sentenced to life, and to serve a minimum of seven years.

He was sent to Belmarsh men's prison – one of the first trans prisoners to be housed in defiance of the New prison Guidelines of 2011, which said that those living as female should be sent to a woman's prison. In February 2015, he was found dead in his cell with a plastic bag around his head, and hands tied to the bed. At the inquest, nearby prisoners reported hearing cries for help.


 * David Burgess is apparently a common name for lawyers. Google brings up such in various English-speaking cities. There is a book, Fighting for Social Justice: The Life Story of David Burgess, but it is about the US labour activist.
EN.Wikipedia
______________________________________

Sheila Jeffreys, in her 2014 book, Gender Hurts: A Feminist Analysis of the Politics of Transgenderism, p160-1, uses this case of all cases to raise alarm that Kanagasingham might be placed in a woman's prison.

The Evening Standard has two articles from February 2015 re the then ongoing inquest into Senthooran Kanagasingham's death, but I could not find any articles in the Standard or elsewhere re the conclusion of the inquest.
Time: No comments:

19 January 2016

Joy Shaffer (1955–) doctor.

Shaffer did a BS in biology at the California Institute of Technology. She was a college room-mate of Kay Brown. In 1979 Joy had transgender surgery.

In 1980 Mary Elizabeth Clark, Jude Patton, Joy Shaffer, Carol Katz, Dianne Saunders and Kay Brown founded the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Southern California Transsexual Rights committee, building on what Vern Bullough had done with the ACLU in the area on the 1960s.
Joy and Kay mid 1980s

In 1981 Joy started medical school, and had an MD from Stanford University in 1985. In 1995 Dr Shaffer founded Seahorse Medical Clinic in San Jose, California. She worked with Anne Lawrence, and introduced Lawrence to Kay Brown.

That same year she was quoted in an article in the New York Times on the brain research of Dutch researcher Dick Swaab which had made claims of a brain difference in MTF transsexuals. She said that Swaab's results corresponded to what she and her colleagues were finding using magnetic resonance imaging technology to scan brains.

Joy wrote the foreword for Transgender Care, 1997. Dr Shaffer was a member of HBIGDA/WPATH, the American College of Physicians, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine and the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association.

The clinic in San Jose continued until 2005, and was a major resource for transsexuals in that area.

She emigrated to Aotearoa/New Zealand,  and worked at a rural medical clinic which served mainly Maoris.
___________________________________

Some accounts say that Joy was the 1st known trans person in medical school in 1981. There is equivocation around the word 'known' but James Barry graduated MD from Edinburgh in 1812; Mary Walker from Syracuse in 1855; Eugene Perkins in the 1890s; Madeleine Pelletier in 1903; Alan Hart from Oregon in 1917; Ewan Forbes from Aberdeen in 1944; Gloria Hemingway from Miami in 1964; Camille Cabral from Recife in the 1970s; Anne Lawrence from Minnesota in 1974; Robertina Manganaro in the early 1980s. However despite this list, Joy was still a pioneer.

Kay Brown in 1999 wrote: “Shaffer, in an as yet unpublished study, used MRI data from a large pool of controls, MTF and FTM transsexuals to demonstrate that the corpus callosum showed sexually dimorphic structures that, on a statistical basis, correlated with gender identity”. I presume that it was never published, in that I cannot find it in Google Scholar or WorldCat.
Time: 8 comments:

17 January 2016

Three Centuries of Police raids


I think that this is a first attempt at compiling such a list. Four Us raids: Cooper's Doughnuts, Dewey's Lunch Counter, Compton's Cafeteria and Stonewall are frequently mentioned, but there were a lot more, even in the US. There are probably many more that I have missed.
1726
February Mother Clap's Molly House, Field Lane, Holborn, London
 
Most found-ins were eventually set free because of lack of evidence, but some were fined, imprisoned and exhibited in the pillory. Three were hanged at Tyburn. Rictor Norton
1810
8 July White Swan, Drury Lane
 
A Molly House where 'faux marriages' were arranged, young boys and female clothing was provided. After a raid and trial, 2 were executed, 6 were pilloried and imprisoned. Blogarticle
1854
26 July Druids' Hall, London
 
After 18 month's police observation, the balls were raided. Some were charged with disguising themselves as women with the purpose of exciting others to commit an unnatural offence. They pleaded naivety and were released. GVWW
1880
September Temperance Ball, Hulme, Manchester
 
The Hall was rented supposedly for the Manchester Pawnbrokers' Association. About half of the dancers were cross-dressed. The police followed a tip-off and raided, but the magistrate released all. GVWW
1889
July 19 Cleveland St, Fitzrovia, London
 
A male brothel that offered cross-dressing as well as other services. Members of the establishment including the Heir Presumptive were customers. EN.Wikipedia
1894
Fitzroy Square, London

Alfred Taylor, who would be a co-defendent with Oscar Wilde the next year, and Arthur Marling, a female impersonator, were arrested for wearing female clothing at a party given by John Preston. GVWW
1901
17-18 November 4a calle de la Paz, Mexico City 
 
The local policeman noticed many carriages depositing passengers, and investigated. He discovered 41 male-bodied persons dancing, 19 dressed as female. He called reinforcements and they were all arrested. It was rumoured that the President's son-in-law was allowed to escape. 19 of the arrested were inducted into the army and sent to do forced labour in the Yucatan where a Mayan insurgency (the Caste War) was being suppressed with the assistance of the UK government. GVWW
1913
Maidenhead
 
Reginald de Veulle and Joseph Dean were at a drag party when locals, having realised the nature of the party, starting throwing stones.
1920
31 March 1128 West Twenty-Eighth Street, Los Angeles
 
After a trip to Bakersfield, Arthur Harper, an ex-mayor of Los Angeles, and his wife returned home unexpectedly, on the last day of March 1920, to find a raid by the Los Angeles police ‘purity squad’ against a party given by their son Joseph, 24. Joseph and seven others were in female garb. The police claimed that a ‘degenerate orgy’ was in progress, and charged all twenty found with Social Vagrancy. The female garb was confiscated as ‘evidence’, and those wearing it had to send for masculine clothing before they could leave. Eight were denied bail after failing to pass medical quarantine examinations. GVWW
1923
4 February Black Parrot Tea Shoppe Hobo-Hemia, Greenwich Village, New York

Detectives Joseph Massie and Dewey Hughes of the Special Service Squad were assigned to the Black Parrot Tea Shoppe Hobo-Hemia, 46 Charles Street, to witness what they had been informed would be a “circus", and arrested five women and eight men. However on closer inspection, Ruby Bernhammer 21 from West Hoboken, New Jersey, did not meet their definition of a woman. Bernhammer was charged with disorderly conduct for giving an indecent dance, and they gave her name as 'Harry'. Another arrested was Arthur C. Budd also 21 who worked as a female impersonator in “The Lady in Ermine” at The Century Theater under the name Rosebud. GVWW
1932
27 Holland Park, London
 
Austin S., barman organized a ball for domestic servants and hotel staff. Many of the men were cross-dressed. The event was raided by the police; 33 men and 1 woman were arrested. The subsequent trial became the most widely reported English 'pansy case’ of the 1930s. GVWW

 
The Big House, Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles
 
From 1932 onwards, and especially after the end of Alcohol Prohibition in 1933, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) started busting the pansy clubs. The raid on The Big House in the fall of 1932 is notable in that it met resistance: the patrons fought back and a female impersonator attempted to escape through a window. However he, the owner and two patrons were arrested. GVWW
1933
6 May Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, Hatzfeldschen Palais in Berlin-Tiergarten
 
The building had been bought by Magnus Hirschfeld in 1919 for the Institut, and had been recognised by the German government as a registered charity. When the National-Socialist Party became the government in 1933, the destruction of the Institute was a priority. GVWW

 
21 May The Buddy's Rendezvous, Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles
 
The Big House, renamed Buddy's Rendezvous, reopened, and the police returned eight months later. The waiter was arrested for selling liquor and beer without a proper licence, and five transvestites were arrested on vagrancy charges. Each received the maximum six-month jail sentence for masquerading, and the bar finally closed. GVWW

 
23 May Tait's, San Francisco.
 
Rae Bourbon was performing, and the performance was being broadcast live on the radio, when the club was raided by the police. GVWW Blogarticle
1935
20 December The Cabin Inn, 3119 Cottage Grove Avenue, Bronzville, Chicago
 
The Cabin Inn was first raided in October when it hosted a wedding between a trans woman and a man. The impersonators were given a choice: "put on your pants or go to jail with the management". The Inn paid bribes, and quickly re-opened. The police returned and cited the Cabin Inn for violating its entertainment license. Twelve had been arrested: the two owners, two bartenders, the floodlight operator and seven female impersonators, three working at the Cabin Inn and four guests. In South State Street Court Judge Eugene McGarry dismissed all the charges: "The testimony does not show any specific violations of ordinance ... It appears that these men were dressed in female clothes. The testimony shows that it was a masquerade party. Female impersonators appear on stage every day. In the absence of any such testimony I have no choice but to find the defendants not guilty and that will be the order." GVWW

1937

November, La Paloma Nightclub outside Miami

After a KKK raid on the club, The Dade County sheriff declared the club to be a menace, and ordered that the club remain closed. However it did re-open. Two weeks after the KKK raid, the sheriff and his men themselves raided the club.  This time the club again re-opened after two days.  GVWW. 
1939
Le Binocle, Paris 
 
Closed by the police in the austerity period that preceded the coming war. GVWW

July: La Paloma Nightclub outside Miami

Another police raid on La Paloma, and they arrested “four men employed . . . to wear feminine clothes and impersonate women in songs and dances”. None of the four appeared in court – they were represented by the club’s attorney, Fred Pine, who entered pleas of guilty. They were to pay a fine of $25 or serve “30 days on charges of vagrancy”. The one exception was an impersonator whose male name was Robert Trent, who appeared personally and was freed on a directed verdict.  GVWW


1947

++November 22: Ueno Park. Tokyo

Police raid on trans prostitutes.  This was motivated not so much by the fact that these were trans prostitutes as by the fact they were seeking customers outside the designated red-light zones. The situation turned into a riot during which several policemen were injured. The incident was widely reported in the press.

1950
January Wiltshire, Los Angeles
 
Three young African Americans were arrested for dressing as female. They claimed to be domestic servants. Lavender Los Angeles, p48.

 
The steamer Robert E. Lee, on the Potomac River
 
An African-American river outing with some cross-dressed. The police arrested some. GVWW
1954
November LaVie Cafe, Altadena, Los Angeles.

The LAPD raided and arrested five 'men' for wearing women's clothes. Lavender Los Angeles, p48.

 
Tommy's Place, 529 Broadway, San Francisco
 
The bar was closed by the vice Squad. Two of the bartenders were charged with serving minors, and then some heroin, probably planted, was found in the ladies' toilets. Tommy lost her license and one of the bartenders was convicted. GVWW
1958
October National Variety Artists Ball, Manhattan Center, New York
 
143 were arrested, including Perry Desmond. GVWW
1959
May. Cooper's Doughnuts, Main St, Los Angeles
 
Police harrasment led to a riot. Queerty
1962
Stella Minge's Molly House, Silverton, Newham, London
 
London's last Molly House was raided now and then. GVWW

 
26 October National Variety Artists Ball, Manhattan Center, New York
 
Usually left alone, this year the NYPD raided the ball and arrested 30 or 43 "men" in female costume. This was the night before the trans gathering at Chevalier D’Eon Resort in upstate New York dominated by Virginia Prince. Those arrested appeared before Judge William Ringel who ruled that they could not be "''masquerading to conceal identity" if they were at a masquerade ball. GVWW

++The Yuga Ball, Metairie, New Orleans

 The first gay 'krewe' – of the krewes that put on the New Orleans Mardi Gras celebrations – was the Yuga Krewe, founded in 1958. The fourth and fifth Yuga Balls were held in the New Orleans suburb of Metairie in a school that had a large dance studio, and was surrounded by a wooded area close to the lake. The second gay krewe, that of Petronius, held its first ball in 1962 at the same location. However the Yuga Ball a week later was raided by the Parish Police. Some managed to flee, but many were arrested in what the police dubbed a ‘lewd stag party’. Those arrested had their names printed in the newspapers and thus most lost their jobs.
1963
February The Black Cat Bar, 710 Montgomery St, San Francisco
 
José Sarria performed at the Black Cat doing camp versions of operatic arias. The police regularly raided gay bars and charged everyone, particularly trans women (as cross-dressing was a municipal crime), found inside. José urged that they plead not guilty which overloaded the courts and judges started demanding actual evidence. After years of harassment, but winning some court cases against the harassment, but with a legal cost of $38,000, the bar was forced to close. EN.Wikipedia
1965
25 April Dewey's Lunch Counter, 219 S 17th St, Philadelphia
 
Deweys was a Philadelphia chain restaurant. The Dewey's at 208 s 13th St was the 'fag' branch where drags queens, hustlers, lesbian and cops ate and drank side by side. The other branches, especially the 17th St branch wanted it that only the 13th St branch be so. They started refusing service to known homosexuals and "persons wearing non-conformist clothing". 150 protesters staged a sit-in and the police were called. 3 protesters were arrested. At a second sit-in a week later the police declined to take any action, and the management agreed to end discrimination. BlogArticle
1966
August Compton's Cafeteria, 101 Taylor St at Turk, San Francisco.
 
This branch of Compton's was one of few places in the city were trans persons could go. However the staff had started calling the police to arrest trans persons. By August a picket was launched. One night friction exploded into riot, dishes were smashed and the windows were smashed. The next night was a repeat. EN.Wikipedia
1967
Midnight, 1 January The Black Cat Tavern, 3909 West Sunset Boulevard.

On the last night of 1966 there was a drag contest at New Faces, a bar on W. Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles. Just before midnight many of the contestants crowded into the Black Cat, just down the street. At the stroke of midnight, as many of the men exchanged a traditional kiss, the LAPD rushed in and beat several customers brutally. They chased two back to the New Faces where they knocked down the woman owner and beat the two bartenders unconscious, one of whom then suffered a ruptured spleen and after recovery was charged with felony assault on a police officer. Six patrons were charged with lewd conduct for kissing, and were all found guilty by a jury. Two of them were later registered as sex offenders. In response, there were organized protests, and the convictions of the two were appealed as far as the US Supreme Court which declined to take the case. This inspired a new periodical, The Advocate, for gay and lesbian (including transvestite) issues. GVWW EN.Wikipedia
1969
2 am 28 June The Stonewall Inn, 51-53 Christopher St, Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York
 
In pursuance of a case of stolen bonds and blackmail, the NYPD decided to raid the Stonewall Inn whose management was implicated. However they chose to raid late at night when the Inn was busy with customers, and ended up paying more attention to how people were dressed than to evidence of blackmail. They took a paddy wagon designated for drag queens, from whom they met the first significant resistance. The police lost control, and a full-scale riot ensued, and continued for three nights. If the upstairs office was searched, it was not mentioned. The riots are now iconic, and taken as the origin of trans liberation. GVWW
1973
Stonewall Club on Twenty-first Street, Miami Beach, Florida
 
After a raid and arrests Angela Douglas of TAO files suit for discrimination. GVWW
1974
February Goldsmiths College, New Cross, London
 
The Gay Lib drag commune, Bethnal Rouge, was invited by Goldsmith College Gay Soc to give a Pre-Disco talk. Group 4 Total Security working for the College attacked them before they even spoke, and when Lewisham police arrived they were told that Bethnal Rouge had come to the disco to cause trouble. One queen needed hospital treatment; another who was head butted lost two front teeth. One was arrested and later that night thrown through a glass door in the police station. The rest escaped. GVWW
1976
21 April South London Gay Community Centre, 78 Railton Rd, Herne Hill, London
 
The building and next-door had been empty for many years when they were squatted in 1974 and became the Gay Community Centre and the Women's Centre. Alternate lifestyles, art and politics flourished. "Gender bending was encouraged to dissolve rigid categories of masculine men and feminine women. For others dressing in drag was a sheer pleasure and an opportunity for ingenious invention". However finally the legal owners asserted their position and bailiffs and police arrived to take the property so that it could be sold to Lambeth Council for £25,000 for redevelopment. BlogArticle
1990
3am, 15 July. Sex Garage loft party in Old Montreal.
 
Sex Garage, hosted by New Yorker Nicolas Jenkins, catered to the "butches, trannies and drag queens" who were reviled elsewhere, and mixed them with all sorts. 16 police cruisers and 40 officers with billy clubs became angry when they found no money behind the bar. Some drag queens climbed out the windows and crawled across rooftops. Many of the rest of the crowd were beaten, and photographs were in the next day's newspapers. Demonstrations started the next evening, and on the 16th they were met with more police brutality, documented by journalists. Demonstrations continued for two months. Led to Lesbians and Gays Against Violence (LGV) which led to La Table de concertation des gaies et lesbiennes du grand Montreal, which lobbied for the Quebec Human Rights Commission’s historic 1993 public hearings on violence against gays and lesbians. Newsarticle Wikipedia

 
19 July Centre de Christ Libérateur (CCL), 3bis, rue Clairaut, Paris
 
Joseph Douce, gay priest, author of La Question transsexuelle, who organised meetings and counselling for trans persons, was the prime mover behind CCL. Two men showed police badges and asked him to go with them. In late October his decomposed body was found in the forest of Rambouillet outside Paris. It is claimed that he was taken by the political police, Renseignements Généraux (RG). RG section leader Jean-Marc Dufourg was questioned about Douce’s death, fired and convicted of misuse of a firearm, but never officially admitted to be Doucé’s murderer. GVWW

 
14 November Tuntenhaus Forellenhof, Mainzer Straße 4, Berlin
 
After the fall of the wall, 30 houses in Mainzer Straße became squats with different orientations. Number 4 was a Tuntenhaus (queer-house). In November the police came to clear the squats, which resulted in street battles with, at its height 1400 police firing tear gas and water canons against 500 squatters. DE.Wikipedia.
2000
11 February Mikons bar, Cordoba.

Vanessa Ledesma of Córdoba, who was active in the Asociación Travestis Unidas de Córdoba (ATUC) was arrested during a scuffle at the Mikons bar on 11 February 2000. Five days later she was dead. Vanessa Ledesma was recognized by Amnesty International as one of six cases to mark its 40th anniversary. GVWW
2004
18 December Gondolin Hotel, Buenos Aires
 
The hotel was taken over by travestis from the town of Salta after the owner died with no kin to inherit. Monica León organized the Asociación Civil Gondolin, in large part to help the travestis there who were heavily into drugs and alcohol, and never used condoms. She coordinated with two hospitals to bring in 40-45 travestis monthly for check-ups to control tuberculosis. She sorted out the legal status of the hotel by getting the travestis to pay its taxes and bills. On 18 December 2004, 60 police surrounded the hotel and robbed the inmates. Monica was shot eight times in the legs. GVWW
2006
6am 31 March Le Madame, Koźlej 12, Warsaw
 
From 2003 Le Madame had been a club and community centre for alternate lifestyles and opinions. In 2005 the city took ownership and with the encouragement of the ruling Kaczynski twins began harassing the club. On 31 March bailiffs and police were sent in, but were met by a sit-in. However it was cleared brutally. Street demonstrations continued for many days. Drag performer Pandora entertained in front of the building. PL.Wikipedia    newsarticle
2008
April Lambda Istanbul
 
Lambda Istanbul, founded 1993, registered 2006. In 2007 the City government complained and a local court banned Lambda Istanbul. The police raided its cultural centre on grounds of "frequent visits by transgender people". The Supreme Court overruled the order on November, and in April the local court gave permission for continued operation. Newsarticle

 
9 November Dasarahalli, Bangalore
 
Police in Bangalore, India, forced 100 hijras from their homes, after a scandal about some hijras kidnapping and castrating male children. Newsarticle
2009
12 June Riyadh
 
66 Filipino guest workers at a private party for Philippine Independence Day were arrested for 'imitating women' and possession of alcohol. Newsarticle

 
June-December Honduras
 
Following the US-backed military coup, opposition political activists were killed by death squads as were “up to 18 gay and transgender men have been killed nationwide — as many as the five prior years — in the nearly six months since a political crisis rocked the nation.” Newsarticle
2010
January Japan
 
Three Filipino, who had previously worked in Japanese nightclubs before final surgery, were arrested on return to Japan to live with their husbands because of discrepancies in their papers. BlogArticle

 
26 March Mercure Hotel Surabaya
 
Conference held by the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) was cancelled by the police after complaints and then threats by Muslims. ILGA

 
1 May Bumi Wijaya Hotel, Depok
 
The National Commission for Human Rights held a human rights training session. This was invaded by the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) complaining that the Commission recognized the transsexual community. Afterwards, Satpol disputed that they had a permit. Newsarticle

 
17 May Pembe Hayat (Pink Life), Ankara.

Five activists were detained and brutally attacked by the police, and then charged with 'resisting police'. In October a judge dismissed the case for lack of evidence and reprimanded the police. Newsarticle

 
July Khartoum
 
19 young men in Sudan at a private party. A police raid found them in female clothing and makeup. No lawyers would defend them. They were sentenced to 30 lashes and fined. They were flogged in public. Newsarticle
2012
February Iraq
 
Continuous reports of militia targeting youths which focus on attacks, kidnapping, torture and murder of ‘emo’ youth and individuals perceived as gay, lesbian or trans. GayAsylumUK has confirmed that the US-backed Iraqi authorities actively conspire in this, arresting LGBT people and handing them over to the militiamen who kill them. The Netherlands is granting asylum to GLBT Iraqis.
2014
April Jeddah
 
Neighbours complained about loud music at a beach party. Some were 'dressed in women's clothes'. The police arrested 35 and accused them of being gay. Newsarticle

 
October Yaoundé
 
A private house was raided after a neighbour complained that it was frequented by 'effeminate homosexuals'. Seven trans persons were arrested and charged with being engaged in "prostitution and homosexual acts". They were later released for lack of evidence. Newsarticle

 
24 November Bangalore
 
After a recent demonstration at Pride against India's recriminalization of homosexuality in 2013, 167 hijras were arrested in a 'crackdown' on assumed beggars, although they were not begging at the time and some were dragged from their homes, and others when they went to the police station to help those already arrested. Nearly 2,000 hijras and supporters, aware of the targeted nature of the sweep marched in protest. Newsarticle
2015
June Agadir
 
Police arrested 20 gay and trans persons, and charged them with “breach of public decency”. Newsarticle
Time: 2 comments: