is distorted by the first commentator, especially. Although there had been sporadic demonstrations and confrontation before the more famous "Stonewall Inn" riots in 1969, the most serious confrontation of the modern era came with the hardly-remembered Compton's Cafeteria riot in San Francisco (1966), although it too was preceded by the Cooper's Donuts riot in Los Angeles (1959). Both of these confrontations were led by and centred around what would now be termed transgendered individuals, although at the time they were dismissed as the "Drag Queen" subset of gay men.

Neither of the first two riots garnered all that much attention outside their local communities, because the newspapers of the era prided themselves on being "family-oriented," and were pro-police in any case, so the few stories that ran were buried in the back pages and the criminal involvement of both organised crime and corrupt police officers was steadfastly ignored.

Both the transgendered and "homosexuals" were routinely "shaken down" by the police to extort money and sometimes sexual favours by the cops, arrested on trumped-up charges to teach them to "cooperate" in future, and also exploited by the Mafia and other gangs, so any members of these groups who dared to claim their rights as citizens were a threat to many untaxed income opportunities.

The Stonewall crowd was more mixed than the people at both the previous riots, and so furnished better "poster children" than did the earlier confrontations, because at the time the transgendered were seen as an embarrassment to the "mainstream" gay {and lesbian) community, so they preferred at least a few guys in skinny black ties and Brooks Brothers loafers to be included in the "photo opportunities."