Remembering Stonewall

 

Today marks the  anniversary of the Stonewall riots. In the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, the New York City  police department carried out a raid on the Stonewall Inn, a  popular Gay Bar in the Greenwich Village .The move was a clear condemnation by law enforcement officials of the city's underground gay population.

Yes it was a dive bar, but even that characterisation was optimistic, since it couldn't get a liguor license. It's drinks were bootlegged and heavily watered down. The contents of no bottle ever matched its label. There were no fire exits and there was no running water. But in that Greenwich Village Tavern, there was music, there was dancing, and there was freedom. It was a place of sanctuary, and one of the only places for New York's gay community to socialise and truly be themselves.

Prior to 1962, same sex relationships were a felony in every state, making it illegal for people of the same sex to show affection towards one another, dance with each other or even just be together. often punished by lengthy prison sentences. Same-sex loving men and women met in secret, fearing the long-term consequences of exposure. Gender nonconforming individuals and cross-dressers might find themselves shunned to the fringes of society. Early efforts at LGBTQ activism had smoldered for years before Stonewall. There had been riots in other gay spaces before. And there had certainly been plenty of police raids at the Stonewall in the past. But the anger that erupted on this day when police attempted to arrest patrons of the Stonewall Inn, sparked a uprising that galvanised the  LGBTQ civil rights movement as we know it today.

It was a raid like so many others, but this time after some patrons and local residents witnessed  police barging into the bar, slamming people against the walls, calling them derogatory names, and then taking money from their wallets. When police finally let patrons out of the bar and ordered them to disperse they refused, and after an officer struck a prisoner on the head, they spontaneously fought back against years of oppression and state violence by hurling rocks and bottles at the police, anything in fact within arm's reach. A number of people even wrestled a parking meter from the ground and tried to use it as a battering ram. The police, fearing for their safety, locked themseles inside the Stonewall Inn as the angry mob outside grew into the thousands. Some were attempting to set the property on fire.Following media coverage of the event, thouusands protested and clashed with riot police over the next six days,.Reinforcements were eventually able to get the crowd under control, well for one night at least. But people had discovered a power that they were not even aware they had, releasing a sense of pride and liberation.

Shouts of 'gay power' and 'we shall overcome' could be heard down the street as support spread.It was a watershed for the worldwide gay rights movement, because it was the first time LGBT+ people had forcibly resisted the police. On Saturday, the windows of the Stonewall were boarded up and painted with gueer liberation slogans like 'We are Open,' 'Support Gay Power- C'mon in girls.' Hostile press coverage was also pinned to the boards, That night the crowd of protestors returned and were led in 'gay power; cheers by a group of gay cheerleaders. There was sustained handholding, kissing, and posing which had appeared only fleetingly on the street before.

Soon the crowd got restless "Let's go down the street and see what's happening girls," someone yelled. They did and were confronted by the Tactical Patrol Force, (originally set up to stop anti-ietnam war protests) However, the TPF failed to break up the crowd, who in defiance sprayed them with rocks and other projectiles. The third day of rioting fell five days after the raid on the Stonewall Inn. On that day 1,000 people congregated at the bar and again took the cops on in the streets.

Once the riots had subsided, protestors were filled with motivation to organise for their rights, th aftermath saw an explosion in gay movement organisation, pride and political activism. A year after the  riots, residents began marching on Christopher Street and Sixth Avenue. The date, June 28 was dubbed Christopher Street Liberation Day. Thousands of people marched the street while thousands of other people lined up alongside them to protest the treatment of the LGBT+  community at the hands of the law. With Stonewall, the spirit of 60's rebellion spread to LGBT+ people in New York and beyond, who found themselves liberated and part of a community, sparking a new sense of urgency about demanding tolerance for persecuted communities.Inspired by New Yor's example, actiists in other cities including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston and Chicago, organised gay pride celebrations that same year. The Stonewall uprising changed the state of play, and sent out a clear message that enough was enough and that it was time fir the harassment and discrimination to end.

It is important to recognise the fact the gay rights movement did not begin at Stonewall, there were gay activists  and calls for "gay power"well before that early morning of June 28, 1969. What was different about Stonewall was that gay activists around the country ad the world were prepared to commemorate it publicly. It was not the first rebellion, but it was the first to be called "the first" and that act of naming mattered, the uprising did mark a turning point, igniting a new atmosphere of militant gay liberation. Radical groups like the libertarian left wing Gay Liberation Front (GLF)  and the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA), were formed  in New York and beyond who sought links with the Black Panthers, the Women's Liberation movement and anti-war organisations. Similar organisations were soon created around the world including Canada, France, Brtain, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands, Australia and New Zealandin, becoming a lasting force that would carry on for the next half-century and beyond.

Stonewall marked a sharp break from the past and a qualitative turning point in the LGBTQ+ movement,,not only because of the continuous rioting in the streets against police, but because activists were able to seize the moment and give an organized expression to the spontaneous uprising that encapsulated the militancy of the era. While the homophile movement made steady, if limited, progress throughout the 1950s and 60s and laid the basis for the gay liberation movement, Stonewall broke the dam of political and social isolation and catapulted the gay movement from the margins and into the open.

 

The Stonewall Inn made headlines again in 2015, when its story came to the silver screen,  but critics at the time said that Stonewall depicted brave, cisgender white males as the unsung heroes of the moement, but in reality it was trans women of color, homeless queer people, sex workers, gay bi and pansexual people who were the riots heart and soul.

 The uprising was multiracial, diverse, and reflected a broad spectrum of the LGBTQ+ community. Many eyewitnesses commented specifically on the important role played that night by the most marginalised sections of the community — street kids, trans women, and queer youth of colour.

 

The resisters who stood up to the police on this day could hardly have imagined that within 50 years, the United States and other Western countries would go from criminalising homosexuality to guaranteering the equal right of same sex couples to marry. Despite the gains made since and why we celebrate Pride in June, ( beyond the sequins and the glitter, it remains a protest, not just an excuse to party) half a century on from the Stonewall Riots, the global LGBT+  community still faces significent problems.

The Stonewall Inn uprising marked a turning point n the visibility of the gay rights movement, with the first  pride parades in 1970. It is however important to remember that many transgender people were discriminated against and discouraged from participating.and the Gay Activist Alliance (GAA), which formed in response to Stonewall, frequently rejected the role transgender people , the majority of whom were of color, rights had played.

On 28 August 1971, the year before the first London Pride March, members of the Gay Liberation (GLF) Youth Group organised the first LGBT+ public march  in the UK. Beginning with a mass gathering in Hyde Park, GLF Youth Group marched through central London to their rally point of Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square. 

What many also forget is that it was only as recently as 2017 that the UK Government finally issued a posthumous pardon to all gay or bi men who were convicted under pernicious sexual offences laws in the last century which enabled police to criminalise people for being gay or bi. In many South Asian and Middle Eastern, in fact around 70 counties  homosexuality is still illegal and in around 70 countries ,as far as the law goes punishable by death.Anti-gay bullying is still prevalent in schools and workplaces and anti LGBT+ sentiment is still being combatted across the world, Sadly there is still to much stigma attached for being who we are. But for many that fight has its roots in those dramatic riots in Greenwich all those years ago.

The LGBT+  movement is still a work in progress, so any single acronym is just a working title. Many other groups could be added to the acronym, including queer, intersex, and loving people of all kinds who just don't fit in the conventional pink and blue boxes of gender. This movement is a rainbow coalition of communities.The struggle will continue as long as governments do not fully respect and protect the "inherent dignity" and "equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family",as the preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights so eloquently pronounces, regardless of their gender identity, gender expression, or sexual orientation. The struggle will continue while many in the LGBT+ community are still fighting for their lives, a community that till faces hostility and horrendous, unexplained violence.

When we remember the Stonewall Rebellion, we should also commit to common memory, think of the many rebels who thought they might be alone but found common ground in movements of popular resistance.We still have so much further to go in the fight for equality. With on going solidarity with other oppressed people across the world, with rage and love we can firmly find  our pride. 

The Stonewall uprising began a process of militant LGBT+ struggle that continues to this day, whose early years were characterized by an anti-racist, anti-war and anti-capitalist, fightback against both heteronormative patriarchy and transphobia. The legacy of Stonewall remains as important as ever  reminding us that rebellions work.

Change does not come because politicians introduce piecemeal legislation or because NGOs organise black-tie fundraisers. It happens when ordinary people take matters into their own hands, when we continue to  challenge institutions of state repression and become active participants in shaping their own world,  By  necessity, we  must  keep  striving  towards a  future grounded in human liberation and solidarity and love. I dedicate this post to the heroes who fought back,so that those that came after could have better lives.