The world's first TLGB district was unveiled in San Francisco on Tuesday.

Named after the historic Compton's Cafeteria riots in 1966 (the first known incident of collective LGBT resistance to police harassment in U.S. history), The Compton's TLGB District will encompass six blocks in the southeastern Tenderloin and will cross over Market Street to include two blocks of 6th Street. The intersection of Compton's Cafeteria Way and Vikki Mar Lane (previously portions of Turk and Taylor Streets) will be a hub of services and economic opportunities for trans and gender-nonconforming communities, as well as a place to honor the community's history.

The lower Tenderloin is one of the most important neighborhoods in America for transgender history, culture, and civil rights.. By creating the Compton's TLGB District we are honoring this vibrant community built by transgender people, and are sending a message to the world that trans people are welcome here.

In the last few weeks our federal government has made it clear that minority communities have never been more at risk in America. San Francisco needs to do everything it can to stand our ground and be a place of sanctuary, for transgender people, and specifically trans women of color. Hopefully the Compton's TLGB District will be the start of a national movement to protect these communities and their history.

--Supervisor Jane Kim

The move comes one day after an agreement was reached with hotel and condominium developer Group 1 over a proposed complex on Market Street.

Group 1 has agreed to contribute $300,000 into a fund to be used to establish a transgender community center and support transgender-serving businesses and nonprofits in the district. The fund will be administered by the Office of Economic and Workplace Development.

The developer got how important transgender history is to the community. They have given us this amazing fund to help us preserve our history. We are lucky to be in San Francisco, where even the developers are supportive of protecting LGBT spaces.

--Nate Allbee, San Francisco Legacy Business Coalition

In the weeks leading up to the deal, the opponents had argued that the environmental study for the 950 Market St. development failed to adequately assess the historic role the block played in the the city’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer history. The block was the center of what was called the “meat rack” — a district bounded by Turk, Taylor, Market and Mason streets — a busy spot for transgender hustlers from the 1950s through the early 1970s.

In addition, two early gay bars — the Old Crow and the Rainbow Tavern — occupied 950-964 Market St., a two-story structure also known as the Dean Building. Another building, the three-story corner structure with entrances at 974 Market St. and 67 Turk St., was home to the Silver Rail, another gay bar.

Tenderloin nonprofit the Q Foundation, an extension of the AIDS Housing Alliance, was at the helm of the preservation effort, led by Brian Basinger.

Gene Compton's cafeteria is acknowledged to be the first instance of the trans community rising to fight back against oppression.

Basinger and others also pointed to Compton's Cafeteria at Turk and Taylor Streets, where in 1966 a group of trans women, sex workers, and queer people who frequented the 24-hour diner fought back against police harassment, smashing dishes and breaking windows and furniture in the first noted LGBT revolt in the US. According to an interview in a documentary on the riot, one local residential hotel operator named Amanda St. Jaymes remembered the way that trans women such as herself were harassed and criminalized by local police. "If we had lipstick on, if we had mascara on, if our hair was too long, we had to put it under a cap," she recalls. "If the buttons was on the wrong side, like a blouse, they would take you to jail because they felt it was female impersonation." The Compton's Cafeteria Riot took place three years before the Stonewall Uprising in New York's Greenwich Village, which President Obama honored with a National Monument designation last summer, creating the first national park dedicated to LGBT history.

What we’ve come to know as the ‘LGBT rights movement’ began with transwomen of color in the Tenderloin, and in many ways that’s where it still lives.

The Tenderloin is home to some of the earliest recorded resistances from sex workers, homeless youth, and trans and gender non-conforming people in the US, and we want to see that history, as well as that present day reality recognized, not erased by development.

--Stephany Ashley, St. James Infirmary