 Because cross-dressing was illegal at the time, police could use the presence of transgender people in a bar as a pretext for making a raid and closing the bar.Many of the militant hustlers and street queens involved in the riot were members of Vanguard, the first known gay youth organization in the United States founded in 1965, which gained the help of radical ministers working with Glide Memorial Church, a center for progressive social activism in the Tenderloin for many years.A lesbian group of street people was also formed called the Street Orphans.