Stonewall riots: The beginning of the LGBTQI+ Pride Day

Mr. Queer

Every June 23rd, almost worldwide, the LGBTQI+ pride day is celebrated, a day when we rejoice for all the rights we have fought for and we have won and for all the rights we still need to earn. We march to end queer stereotypes, we march against violence, discrimination and cis-heteronormativity, we promote our self-affirmation, our dignity and equal rights we deserve, we march to increase or visibility as a social group, as a community, we celebrate our sexual diversity and gender identity, we march against the social stigma; but which is the origin of this festivity? It all started with a riot in a New York gay bar in Greenwich Village.  

The Stonewall Inn was a bar owned by the mafia and it was usually visited by the most marginalized, vulnerable, and poor people of the LGBTQI+ community in the 1950s and 1960s in New York, which was weird cause most of the bars didn’t welcome openly LGBTQ+ people.

Although early American minority groups of diverse sexual orientations and gender identity (Lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and trans people) started to prove they weren’t wrong, nor an aberration and much less that their lifestyle was a sin, so that it could be assimilated in society, in the 1960s it was normal, usual and legal for the police to do routinely raids in gay bars  due to the anti-gay system they lived in, they usually controlled this situations and this community but this time it was not going to happen.

Even though it wasn’t the first uprising for LGBTQI+ rights as we saw with the Cuban prison work camps for homosexuals, the DOB and Mattachine Society, both important and some of the firsts homophile organizations, the Stonewall rebellion is widely considered as the most significant event that lead to the gay liberation movement and the modern fight for LGBT rights in the USA.

It was Saturday, 28 of June 1969 at 1:02 a.m, there were about 200 people in the establishment when four cops, dressed in civilian clothes, (they were  incognito), with two police officers, plus Charles Smythe (detective), and Seymour Pine (sub inspector), arrived at the bars door and made everyone notice them. It was quite weird since that moment, they didn’t warn the bars owner that there was going to be a raid, plus it was quite late for doing one. The customers that had never been in a police break-in, were afraid and astonished, they didn’t know what to do, and the customers that knew what was happening ran to the doors and the windows but the police had already blocked them. The raid, as I said earlier, didn’t go as usual, the routine was to line up the customers and check their identification then, every person dressed as a woman should go to washroom so that female cops could see if their clothing matched with their sex, all the patrons refused to help this time, so the police decided to take them all to the police station and then they separated the trans people to a dark room in the back of the  tavern, as I mentioned and the customers then stated it was a weird and tensioning moment even more when two male cops started to sexually harass two lesbians. Since the transportation didn’t arrive those who weren’t arrested were kicked out of the Inn, but for the first time they didn’t go running to the safe of their house, the stayed in front of the bar in which a couple of minutes there was a crowd of approximately 100 or 150 people out their observing this normal homophobic scene. 

When the first prison van arrived the crowd of mostly homosexuals had been duplicated and was confused but then they were cheering when the mafia was the one boarding the van, act immediately the barmen were also being led to the van and suddenly the bystanders started shouting and singing “Gay power!”, “We shall overcome!” with which the mob reacted with amusement and laughter, with every second going by their hostility grew more and more.

An officer pushed away a transvestite and the crowd booed, the transvestite hit him with her purse and the mob started throwing coins and bottles at the police officer and the wagon, as a rumour said that the clients that were still in the bar were being beaten up, were they going to let this happen? Not this time, our rights had been violated and trampled for way to long.

It all exploded when a typical New Yorker tomboy was being escorted to a prison van, but started to fight with four cops for about ten minutes because her handcuffs were to tight and the cops hit her with a bludgeon, this made the woman tell the bystanders to react and fight, making the whole mob angry, and that’s when it all exploded. 

The police tried to contain and stop the mob by tackling them what made them even more angry. Some of the people that had been arrested escaped when the police didn’t notice. All this, while the protesters tried to overturn the van and two police cars. The rioters kept on throwing at the police officers coins while they yelled at them “Pigs!” “Faggot cops!” even beer cans where thrown towards the police, so the police starts to attack making the rioters to run and scatter, they then arrived construction site where they kept on attacking the cops with stacks and bricks, it was now a war, homophobics versus homophiles, police officers against “criminals” as we were tagged by back then. Numerous detainees, Van Ronk (a heterosexual folk singer), Howard Smith (a journalist for The Village Voice), and ten police officers had take shelter in the bar for their own safety.

The first people to throw garbage and garbage cans, stones, bottles and bricks as projectiles were the most marginalized such as teen gay homeless, and street queens, since they had nothing to lose, this bar was the only thing they had, and they weren’t going to lose their “house” this easily, one of this important characters in this uprising and in the gay liberation movement was Sylvia Rivera self-identified street queen and transgender activist (which is weird, she a transgender was the one that founded the gay liberation movement and her group, the trans group is one of the LGBTQI+ groups with most discrimination, but its thanks to them this and multiple riots and rights we have today)

Then the Tactical Patrol Force of the NYPD arrived, that meant only one thing, they were terribly humiliated they were prepared to kill, as soon as they arrived they started to arrest every person they could and put them in the prison vans. The TPF also tried pushing the mob backwards, although the rioters just mocked them and started singing “We are the Stonewall girls/We wear our hair in curls/We don’t wear underwear/We show our pubic hair”. 

By 4:00 a.m. the uprising had calmed down, the streets were nearly cleared although some rioters were still out, talking about the unimaginable of what they had witnessed, there was still a bit on angriness in the air by both parts, but that wasn’t the end of the Stonewall Inn riot, it was just the beginning, the beginning of the modern worldwide gay liberation movement.

The New York Post, New York Times, and Daily News informed about the riots on the front page, making the news spread even faster, not only news spread fast but rumours, the last night rebellion in Stonewall Inn was covered in rumours, mostly uncertain and false.

Later, in Saturday June 28, all kinds of people went to the burned Stonewall Inn, homosexual and non-homosexual, tourists and neighbours, bystanders and rioters, the establishment now had graffiti’s that read “They invaded our rights”, “Legalize gay bars”, “Support gay power”, “Drag power” and some more LGBTQI+ empowerment messages, and even though the bar was completely destroyed it was still open.

That night the riots were again in Christopher Street and its surroundings, one of the most remarkable besides its huge participation was the exhibition and public affection the LGBTQI+ community wasn’t afraid to do anymore, not in that riot nor in many other future parades. Every block around Stonewall Inn was occupied, there was even cars, which the euphoric crowd blocked, and here is where we see the triumphant entrance of Marsha P. Johnson a friend of Sylvia Rivera, she was an African-American drag queen and one of the founders and most important characters in the American gay liberation activism, and what did she do for me to refer to her appearance in the scene as a triumphant entrance? Well, she climbed al lamppost and dropped a heavy bag on to a police car making the windshield shatter and a victorious and joyful shout of my beautiful homophile community.

Even though the police were there to calm everything and to not let it go out of control like last time, guess what? My beautiful queer community triumphed once more, until the TPF arrived again. Even if the TPF captured someone, the demonstrators fought to take them back, although it was an interesting riot night the street battle ended around 4:00 a.m. But what was coming for the liberation movement was the real rebellion, and it was caused by that first raid the cops made at the tavern, my fellow gay partners were ready to fight back and stop all the oppression they had lived for way to long.

Next Monday and Tuesday were calm due to the weather, but really early on Wednesday morning pamphlets, and manifestos were been printed, reunions were been held, organizations were being created, this unbearable repression, oppression, and silence weren’t going to be tolerated anymore, the mafia, the cops and the pornographic industry wasn’t going to control the queer community anymore, it was set, Christopher street would be liberated, and it was; and thanks to that liberation and the stonewall riots the hugest and modern movement for the liberation of the LGBTQI+ community was in march and we are going to triumph in this battle, the humanity the society, the religion and the governments shall understand, visible and respect our diversity, our lifestyle, our sexual orientations, and gender identity.

It’s been a long way since the stonewall riots, a rebellion that us, the queer community, are proud of. It was a rebellion that traced an after an a before in LGBTQI+ rights, and yes we have made huge advances, but we still have to do more. How is it possible that there’s still country’s where being gay is punished with death sentence? that the lesbians are sexualized? that bisexuals and the trans community are invisibilized? that important figures, such as presidents, say that you have to beat up the gay in your son? that the percentage of suicides in teens is higher in the LGBTQI+ community than in the heterosexual one? it is simply unbearable to live and be tagged in gender roles and stereotypes, that the number one insult is “gay”, “queer”, “fag” “panssycake”, its unbearable that were afraid to “come out” even to our parents and family, to our closest friends, even that’s wrong why if heterosexuals don’t have to come out us as minority have to come out, it’s unbelievable that people don’t let us kiss in public, but heterosexuals can and in really inappropriate ways, most of the company’s and even ally’s and random people take advantage of our festivities, our parades, just cause its cool to have the gay flag, and it’s cool to kiss with my friend just cause were in pride and no, things aren’t supposed to be that way, yes we have achieved a lot, but even though the cis-hetero community isn’t a minority or discriminated, or shoved out of the house just because of your sexual preferences, they “need” a heterosexual pride day, and march against us and our rights, we have gone a long way, but there is still a lot of road to walk, a lot of rebellions to do, a lot of rights to claim.