Stonewall. They say it was the spark that set the fire ablaze. The start of the modern LGBTQ movement. Protests and riots that lasted for days in defense of gay rights. And from it, came gay pride parades, gay pride months, days, and celebrations far from the United States, in cities around the world.
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Written and produced by Michael Fox.
Resources
Beyond Stonewall: Exploring LGBTQ+ History Through the Smithsonian Archives. Smithsonian Channel
Stonewall Riots: A Revolution Born From Tragedy
National march on Washington for lesbian and gay rights actualities (Part 1 of 4)
Marsha P. Johnson y Sylvia Rivera. Historias de protectores y resistencias
La notte di Stonewall: la testimonianza di Sylvia Rivera
Transcript
Stonewall.
They say it was the spark that set the fire ablaze. The start of the modern LGBTQ movement. Riots that lasted for days in defense of gay rights. And from it came gay pride parades, gay pride months, days, and celebrations far from the United States, in cities around the world.
It’s almost midnight on June 27, 1969. Friday night in New York City. Lower Manhattan. Greenwich Village. Police raid a gay bar known as Stonewall Inn.
It’s supposed to be routine. They’re not used to resistance. The officers try to arrest people in the bar… See, at this time, homosexuality and cross-dressing are illegal in most US states. And people are disrespected and abused for being who they are. There’s a lot of fear of coming out.
This is from a 1990 Pacifica Radio documentary about Stonewall:
“At that time, if there was even a suspicion that you were gay, that you were a lesbian, you were fired from your job. And you were in such a position of disgrace that you slunk out without saying goodbye even to the people that liked you and you liked; never even bother to clean your desk. You just disappeared. You just disappeared. You went quietly because you were afraid that the recriminations that would come if you even stood there and protested would be worse.”
But, tonight, June 28, 1969, instead of cooperating, people fight back.
One Stonewall patron, Michael Fader, would later say, “We weren’t going to be walking meekly in the night and letting them shove us around—it’s like standing your ground for the first time and in a really strong way, and that’s what caught the police by surprise. There was something in the air,” he said. “Freedom, a long time overdue, and we’re going to fight for it.”
“We were tired. We were fed up. And it was… I guess, myself and other people felt it was out time to do something to liberate ourselves.”
That’s Sylvia Rivera, a transgender rights activist who participated in the Stonewall riots. She’d go on to become a powerful activist in support of LGBTQ rights. Her words are taken from an old video published online about a decade ago, though she passed away in 2002. She says the transgender community had it the worst.
“We were treated by the police as the garbage of the homosexual community. And if you said anything to them they would either arrest you or hit you. So we had learned over the years to keep our mouths shut. But that night we had had enough.”
“There were so many people that came out of the woodwork, like cockroaches. We even had straight people helping us in this moment of liberation, because as the crowds grew bigger, from 200 people, it grew into maybe a thousand or more. That’s when we started throwing bottles, turning over cars. A few of the drag queens uprooted a parking meter out of the ground. The molotov cocktails started flying. It was a riot that you were used to seeing on the television, when you went to other demonstrations. It got so bad that the police had to go back inside the bar and barricade themselves inside the bar.
“The most beautiful thing that I found that evening was that I saw the anger of the people who were getting beat up. They had blood on their faces and their bodies. They did not run away. They kept on coming back for more. Because we knew we had to fight for what we believed in. And it was our night.”
That was just the first night. Riots continued into the coming days. It was the start of something. Gay activists founded LGBTQ rights groups demanding justice, freedom, and respect.
The following year, the first gay pride parades were held in a handful of US cities on the anniversary of the Stonewall riots. It had sparked a movement that could not be contained. A movement for LGBTQ rights. A movement for people to be respected for who they are.
Today, June is celebrated as LGBTQ Pride Month. Gay pride parades are held in cities across the world. And in 2016, the Stonewall National Monument was established at the site of the Stonewall Riots. The legacy lives on…
Today, the Trump administration is again attacking trans rights. Earlier this year, the Park Service even removed the word “transgender” from its history of the Stonewall Uprising on the Stonewall National Monument website. It is a sign that the fight for transgender and true LGBTQ rights continues…
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Author: Michael Fox
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