Downtown San Francisco’s Tenderloin district could soon be home to the first government-sanctioned transgender district in the world.
Last week, San Francisco Supervisor Jane Kim announced legislation that would create the Compton’s Transgender, Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual District in San Francisco. The district will encompass six blocks in the Tenderloin, one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods and where one of the first LGBTQ civil rights uprisings in the United States occurred.
The Tenderloin has been a hub of vibrant transgender culture since the Gold Rush, when many trans and gender-nonconforming people worked in saloons and brothels there, according to the Compton District Coalition, the group of community members, activists, and nonprofit representatives that formed to spearhead the project and work with city officials to make it a reality. The proposal for the district aims to preserve this cultural heritage.