Author, activist traces over a century of transgender history in San Francisco's Tenderloin

CBS News

a day ago

In the heart of San Francisco, Reverend Dr. Megan Rohrer has unearthed a lineage of transgender history that has long thrived in the city. Within that history, Rohrer found a community that felt like home.
"Finding people in old-timey photos made me feel a little bit more seen in presence today, like I wasn't inventing a new thing for myself," Rohrer said.
Today, he walks among the world's first legally recognized Transgender District, which spans parts of Market Street and the Tenderloin.
"On these corners is a place where the 1906 earthquake destroyed a lot of stuff, including that vaudeville theater. It paved the way for trans people to kind of move into some of that housing and to SROs in the area," he said.
The history embedded in these blocks stretches back centuries.
"There is an old, very exciting history of trans community and joy that spans all the way back to the 1800s," he added.
Rohrer is bringing that history to light in a new book, aiming to make trans history accessible and to offer a storied family tree to today's trans community.
"My goal is that these photos will be so much more accessible to anyone who's looking for them, either at a public library where they check it out, or at a local store where they can get their own, but they have to travel the country to different archives to find these really historic photos," he said.
But this history doesn't only live in Rohrer's book - it comes to life through the voices of trans elders, such as Miss Billie Cooper, a veteran who lived through San Francisco's underground trans scene and never stopped being unapologetically herself.
"I found about men from all over the world. I had a smorgasbord ... there I had back then I had a beard, okay, but I would get from everybody, and I can wear my own five-inch heels," Cooper said.
For many, these aren't just stories. They serve as a guiding light in a time when trans rights are under fire. The lessons mark a blueprint for hope and resistance.
"There's not a day I leave my house where I don't wonder where I can go to the bathroom, if I can go to the bathroom, and if I will be safe in those spaces," Rohrer said. "So sharing stories amongst other trans people has been the way to try to stay as safe as possible since the before times," Rohrer said.
Rohrer hopes the stories and lessons preserved in the book and reflected in the streets of the Transgender District will ensure the next generation won't have to search so far to find themselves.
Megan's book, San Francisco's Transgender District, is now available in bookstores and online.