New Zealand is way ahead of the United States when it comes to acceptance of transgender people, says activist and historian Dr Susan Stryker. Ms Stryker was speaking at Auckland University last night and presenting a rough cut of her forthcoming documentary “Screaming Queens”, which she hopes will help put a human face to transgender issues. Other stories, she says, have tended to focus on individuals overcoming great odds whilst ignoring the transgender community and its political issues as a whole. Screaming Queens tells the story of the 1966 Comptons Cafeteria riot in San Francisco, of which little was known historically before Stryker began her research. Taking place three years before the iconic Stonewall riot, the Comptons incident was the first time transgender people fought back en masse against police brutality and corruption and paved the way for major social change in the sixties and seventies. Stryker hopes to have the documentary finished by the end of the year and has been asked to return to New Zealand next June to present it at Out Takes.