DESPITE HIGH TEMPERATURES and a glaring sun, a large crowd gathered Sunday afternoon for a celebration of transgender visibility in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood.
Dozens convened at Boeddeker Park on Eddy Street for the 2026 Transgender Day of Visibility Festival, a free event featuring drag performances and live music.
“What a great way to wrap up the week — by being with community,” said Breonna McCree, co-executive director of The Transgender District, a nonprofit that organized the event.
The festival followed “No Kings” protests and marches held the day prior in San Francisco and other cities across the Bay Area and beyond.
“Coming off the heels of the protest, the intent today is to uplift trans and nonbinary people,” McCree said.
International Trans Day of Visibility, observed annually on March 31, was created in 2010 by Rachel Crandall-Crocker, executive director and co-founder of the nonprofit Transgender Michigan. The day celebrates the lives and histories of trans and gender-nonconforming people, including their authenticity, contributions, activism and resilience.
The festival took place in the heart of San Francisco’s Transgender District — the first legally recognized cultural district of its kind in the world.
Marked by trans pride banners and painted utility poles, the district spans six blocks in the southeastern Tenderloin and includes the site of a pivotal 1966 LGBTQ+ uprising at Compton’s Cafeteria at Turk and Taylor streets.
In 2017, three Black trans women — Honey Mahogany, Aria Sa’id and Janetta Johnson — founded the same-named nonprofit to preserve the area’s history and support the trans community through resources and programming.
A historically significant venue
Holding the festival in the Tenderloin, long a hub for trans and queer communities, was intentional. Boeddeker Park — near the site of Compton’s Cafeteria — offered both a central and historic gathering space.
“This park holds a lot of significance here in the Tenderloin — a lot of trans and nonbinary people used to congregate here and have events here,” McCree said.
In past years, the district partnered with other organizations to host the festival. This year marked the first time it produced the event independently.
“We stepped out on our own to celebrate the community,” she said.
The lineup included performances by Kipper, Curveball, Mary Vice, Pop Up Drag Queen, Brenn Badd and Lici Makaveli, along with live music from the Backyard Party Kings and the New Voices Bay Area Trans, Intersex and Genderqueer Choir.
Niko Storment, founder and owner of Rosen Creative House, an LGBTQ+-focused production company, and a lead organizer of the San Francisco Trans March, also performed.
“As trans people, we’ve been told that visibility is important — and it is — but there hasn’t been a lot of cognitive complexity around what ‘visibility’ means,” Storment said. “Right now we’re hypervisible in the media, and not in a good way.”
For Storment, the gathering offered a chance to reframe that visibility in a positive, community-centered space.
“In spaces like this here in the Transgender District, we get to reclaim what our visibility means,” he said. “I’ve been able to be visible in my music.”
The performances also drew allies and passersby from the neighborhood. Some paused at the park’s entrance before stepping in, while others, including a longtime Tenderloin resident, sat on benches to watch and “support the gay community.”
As the festival wound down, San Francisco Drag Laureate Per Sia led an abbreviated “Drag Story Hour,” reading “Bodies Are Cool” by Tyler Feder.
“Bodies are what?” she asked, prompting her audience.
“Cool!” attendees responded in unison.
Her presence — in a flowing gown, book in hand — underscored the day’s themes of visibility, acceptance, community and joy, as the crowd gathered around her, the moment carrying across the park.