Hundreds of people walked from Dolores Park to Turk and Taylor for the trans march on Friday. According to Linden, an organizer who was there, things were peaceful, until suddenly they weren’t.
“Everybody was just kind of mingling. All of a sudden, a bunch of police swarmed in to try to break up the event.”
Five people were arrested at Turk and Taylor. Ironically, it’s the same intersection where, almost 60 years ago, Compton’s Cafeteria Riot happened.
“And where I was standing, I actually saw the first person get arrested and about six cops very targetedly swarmed this one individual, and kind of like broke through the crowd to find them and put them on the ground and arrest them.”
According to Linden, it wasn’t clear why this person was targeted. “It wasn't like they were telling us that it was an unlawful assembly and we had to leave," Linden said. "It just felt really random.”
SFPD says that they targeted people who were seen vandalizing property or obstructing the officers. Those who were arrested were detained overnight. News of the arrests spread quickly online. For many, like Linden, it changed the tone of the weekend.
“ It's easy to think about the Bay Area being a safe space for trans people, and this felt like an intense confrontation with the fact that that's not actually true.”
On Saturday night, there was another blow to the morale of the weekend, when the police broke up the party known as “Stud Alley.” Linden was there as well.
“Stud Alley is a party for the freaks—” they said “—that started because of The Stud, a famous queer bar, had closed down, and people wanted to party there still, and so they partied in the alley instead.”
Since 2021, Stud Alley has been a staple for many during Pride. It’s one of, if not the, biggest free parties of the weekend. In 2024, the Obama sisters were rumored to have shown up. But this year, the police shut it down quickly.
“Things were going well, you know, the party was happening, people were dancing, " Linden described. "And then slowly but surely, more cops started coming on both ends of the alley, taking down the barricades. ... They were shining a very bright white light from the back of the alley towards the front for a long time. And then they kind of swarmed us from the back. There was a lot of police, and they were pushing the line really quickly. I've never been in a police line moving that quickly before.”
Stud Alley has garnered a lot of negative media attention over the years. But for people like Linden, it’s seen as proof that the Bay Area’s queer counterculture is still thriving.
“Them pushing us out, out of the alley felt like a metaphor of them pushing trans people, queer people, leftists out of San Francisco.”
According to SFPD, 20 people were arrested at Stud Alley.
