Body allows zoning appeal over prisoner reentry facility in historic SF transgender site

An oversight body is allowing LGBTQ advocates and historians to question the ability of a residential reentry facility for recently released prisoners to operate in a transgender historic site in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood.

It is where one night in August 1966 an angry drag queen patronizing Gene Compton's Cafeteria housed in a ground floor commercial space reportedly threw a cup of hot coffee in the face of a police officer as he tried to arrest her without a warrant. The exact date of the altercation has been lost to time. But the incident sparked a riot between trans and queer patrons of the 24-hour diner and cops, as detailed in the 2005 documentary "Screaming Queens" by transgender scholar and historian Susan Stryker, Ph.D.

The building at 111 Taylor earlier this year became the first property granted federal landmark status specifically for its connection to the transgender movement in the U.S. It is also now on the California Register of Historical Resources.

In 2022, San Francisco officials had landmarked the intersection of Turk and Taylor in front of the building in recognition of the uprising by the LGBTQ Compton’s patrons. The city's 307th landmark also included portions of the structure's exterior walls containing the commercial space that had housed the Compton’s eatery on both the Turk and Taylor street facades.

For decades the building has been owned by WBP Leasing Inc, a subsidiary of GEO Group Inc., and operated as a halfway house for formerly incarcerated people as they attempt to restart their civilian lives. It has attracted the ire of LGBTQ advocates, who want to “liberate it” and repurpose it in a community-focused way that centers the trans experience.

“We do not consider running a for-profit carceral facility at this location to be the site’s highest and best use,” states a letter signed by a host of LGBTQ groups and leaders. “Our vision is to imagine an alternative future for 101-121 Taylor – one that honors the building’s unique historical significance as the site of a significant act of mass resistance to police abuse of trans people and other marginalized, stigmatized groups in San Francisco’s Tenderloin.”

The matter was taken up Wednesday night by the San Francisco Board of Appeals. At issue was Zoning Administrator Corey Teague’s determination in January that GEO Group Inc. is still grandfathered in as “a legal nonconforming Group Housing use” at 111 Taylor Street since it has operated in the building prior to new zoning that took effective on August 21, 2022. Under those rules, group housing uses are prohibited except if for an affordable housing project or for units in a single-room occupancy residential hotel.

“The site is still used for a work furlough program sponsored by both Federal and State government contracts. As such, the legal residential use for this property continues to be Group Housing,” determined Teague. “Group Housing is a principally permitted use in the RC-4 Zoning District, with a permitted density of up to one bedroom for every 70 square feet of lot area.”

Chandra Laborde, a queer Buddhist architect with the TurkxTaylor Initiative, one of the groups leading the effort to reclaim the Compton’s site, had paid last summer for an account on a system known to be notified about planning matters related to the Compton’s site. Yet, she wasn’t notified about Teague’s January 28, 2025 Letter of Determination for the GEO Group.

Thus, she missed the deadline to submit an appeal of it and filed a request with the appeals board to be granted permission to do so.

“The Compton's Cafeteria Riot site is significant to San Francisco's trans and queer community due to its history of resistance to unjust criminalization and the repression of trans lives,” noted Laborde in her request to the appeals board. “This history is precisely what renders its current use as a for-profit carceral facility unsuitable. Allowing GEO Group to operate at this historic site contradicts San Francisco's commitments to LGBTQ+ and racial justice.”

Attorneys for the company had argued there was no reason to grant Laborde’s request since notification isn’t required for zoning administrator determinations.

“This is not an exceptional case, nor was there any intentional or inadvertent error on the part of the City or anyone else. Rather the existing use, which has been operating at 111 Taylor Street (‘Facility’) for over 30 years, requested a routine Determination to update its files for its continuing partnership with federal and state government. Prior City letters from 2022, 2020, 2016, and 2006 also determined the use to be ‘Group Housing,’ and no change of use is proposed,” contended the GEO Group’s legal counsel at Allen Matkins Leck Gamble Mallory & Natsis LLP.

Yet the Board of Appeals members disagreed, voting 4-0 to grant Laborde’s request after holding a hearing on it May 7. She now has five days to do so.

The commissioners faulted the planning department for keeping a list of various neighborhood groups and elected leaders it notifies about letters of determination specific to their area of the city but not to people who sign up via what is known as the BBN notification system. Although Teague had explained his determination letters are not required to be sent out to BBN subscribers, the appeals board members said the policy is confusing and unlikely to be understood by ordinary city residents like Laborde.

“The city has granted the right for people to appeal a letter of determination but has not protected their ability for carrying out that right,” contended appeals board President John Trasviña, a former Biden and Obama administration appointee and former dean of the University of San Francisco School of Law.

Commissioner Rick Swig, a hospitality industry professional, while not faulting any city staff personally for the error, said he found it inconceivable that no one at the planning department thought to include Laborde among the informal list of groups and leaders sent the notification about the letter of determination for the 111 Taylor site.

“Why wasn’t the person who has taken the most personal action in this activity, how is that person leap-frogged and not informed,” Swig had asked early on during the hearing.

Multiple members of the public who spoke also called out city planning staff for not informing any trans-led groups involved in the Tenderloin and the conversation over the usage of the 111 Taylor site about the letter of determination. Among them was Shane Zaldivar, who has performed in the immersive play "The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot" and is manager of training and education for the city’s Office of Transgender Initiatives.

“How do we get to be part of this process?” asked Zaldivar, stressing she was speaking in her personal capacity and not as a city employee.

JJ Dollarhide, a transgender resident of the city who leads walking history tours through the Tenderloin, expressed amazement that the city office or the Transgender District weren’t among the groups notified.

“That, in itself, is a tragedy that needs to be reversed,” said Dollarhide.

In addition to the discussions about the future usage of the building, there is also talk of having the city landmark the entire building at 111 Taylor Street, which would provide it a modicum of protection, as any proposals for the site would trigger greater scrutiny of the plans by city planning staff.

GEO's contract with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is set to expire in June, while its federal contract is to end in 2026. LGBTQ advocates are calling for both contracts not to be renewed.

“Even if the GEO Group were to relocate, achieving the liberation of 101-121 Taylor would represent a significant symbolic victory,” noted the LGBTQ advocates in their letter. “It would send a powerful message against the commercialization of rehabilitation and reintegration services and stand as a testament to our collective resolve to protect spaces of queer and trans historical and community importance, especially significant in today’s culture wars against transgender people.”