Okay, but what actually happened at Stonewall?
Shimrit Janes
Writer, Researcher, Facilitator ? Exploring kinship in digital and non-digital space ? Co-author 'Nature of Work'
“Like when people don’t know what Stonewall is... That was fighting for gay rights, and people were killed.”
“No one was killed at Stonewall.”
“N-nobody was killed?”
This iconic exchange between drag queens Derrick Berry and Willam captures the importance and the myth of Stonewall for LGBTQIA+ rights movements. It’s essential history for today.
And the facts of what actually happened not only often get lost in the mythology of what Stonewall has come to signify, but have to an extent been lost to time through a lack of primary sources and documentation – something all too common for histories from communities that have been marginalised, and often haven't been able to maintain their own archives and oral traditions through eldership. Much of the history has been pieced together through finding and comparing testimonies from those who haven spoken and been interviewed about it on record.
Friday 28th June 2024 marked the 55th year since that night; a night that is remembered annually with the Stonewall Uprising Anniversary. As Pride month technically comes to a close (even though there are still Pride parades globally throughout the year), let's take a look at what happened at Stonewall, why its myth has become so important, and links to further reading to keep learning and finding out more.
So, what even was Stonewall?
At around 1am on Saturday 28th June 1969, the Stonewall Inn – a Greenwich Village bar on Christopher Street frequented by New York’s LGBTQIA+ population, and run by the Mafia – was raided by police.?And not for the first time.
Police were increasingly using old ‘masquerade laws’ to arrest and punish gay men, trans women, lesbians, trans men, drag queens and drag kings for what became known as the ‘three-article rule’ – or wearing clothing that didn’t match your sex. Raids on bars, as well as harassment on the street, were all too common. Same-sex relationships were illegal. The climate for LGBTQIA+ people in New York – and even more so for those who were of colour – was not only oppressive but frequently violent.?
If that sounds familiar, it’s because today, drag performances are increasingly coming under attack as part of a tightening of laws against trans people and the LGBTQIA+ community as a whole.?A trans-bills tracker shows the extent to which bills that impact trans people are being considered in the US, including how they've increased over the last three years.
The raid on Stonewall on 28th June in 1969, however, was different.?
Not only was there resistance, but those looking on joined in protesting. Over the next three or so hours and into the early Saturday morning, more and more people arrived to support and join in the protest.?
As news of what had happened overnight spread through the city during the day, that Saturday evening a crowd of seemingly thousands of protesters gathered outside Stonewall on Christopher Street, and in the area around it. The protests kept on going until they finally ended the following Wednesday, on 2nd July 1969.?
It was a seminal moment in LGBTQIA+ rights movements, even if it wasn't the first protest against police that decade; there had been one just two years earlier in Los Angeles, for example.
The uprising also didn’t happen in a vacuum, but against a wider backdrop of rights-based movements and protests in the 1960s and ‘70s, particularly for women and Black Americans; Martin Luther King had only just been assassinated the previous year.?
With lesbians and transwomen of colour some of those most affected by the harassment, violence, and oppressive laws of the time, Stonewall therefore also serves as a reminder of why intersectionality is such a crucial lens to apply not only to history, but to today as well.
Stonewall is LGBTQIA+ history. And it is also Black history, Latinx history, women's history, American history.
The meaning and myth of Stonewall
Beyond the facts of what happened, that first night of the uprising has become shrouded in myth. Who threw the first brick? Who was there? Who wasn’t there but said they were? With so few documented primary sources of the night, much has had to be pieced together from some photography, and witness testimony captured in news stories, videos and audio, often from many years later.?
There’s a great video by The New York Times from 2019 called, The Stonewall You Know Is a Myth. And That’s O.K, which talks through some of the myths but also reminds us that the hard facts of what happened have almost become less important than what Stonewall has come to mean.?
What is fascinating is how the stories surrounding Stonewall serve as a way for us to learn about people like Stormé DeLarverie, whose name is often left out of retellings of that night. Stormé is widely believed to have been the biracial lesbian drag king who escaped the grips of the police early on in the raid, shouting, “Why don’t you do something? Why are you just standing there!”, prompting many to start protesting and resisting. Stormé is often quoted as having said in the years after, “It was a rebellion, it was an uprising. It wasn’t no damn riot”.
Other names are more familiar. Black activist, drag queen and self-described 'transvestite' using the language of the time, Marsha P. Johnson has become synonymous with Stonewall with many saying she threw the first brick – even though by her own admission she didn’t make it ‘downtown’ to the bar until around 2am, once the uprising was already well underway.?
Marsha, together with her Latina activist friend Sylvia Rivera, who also described herself as a 'transvestite', would come to speak of Stonewall and its importance over the later years, even joking about whether or not Sylvia was there. Both Marsha and Sylvia fought visibly and loudly for trans and gay rights, setting up the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries together the following year, the manifesto of which is well worth a read. There's also an interview with both of them that was unearthed in 2019, recorded in 1970, which gets into both of their experiences and views of themselves at the time.
And while Marsha P Johnson and Slyvia Rivera are more well known, others that emerged from the Stonewall era, such as Black transwoman and activist Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, don't have their names in the public conciousness as much, but have been equally essential within rights movements.
On Stonewall's first anniversary, the ‘Christopher Street Liberation Day March’ was one of a few that year that would eventually lead to the June Pride marches we have globally today.
Regardless of the myths, the meaning of Stonewall captures people’s imaginations as a calling card to stand for equality for all.?
And while great strides have been made for LGBTQIA+ people, Stonewall reminds us that the origins of Pride are rooted in protest within an environment that was openly hostile.
At a time when Pride is often more of a festival, the message of Stonewall as one of both protest and celebration rings clear. The commerciality of Pride is increasingly coming under criticism, with companies accused of rainbow-washing for profit while not acting year-round in support of LGBTQIA+ communities. In addition, mainstream Pride marches are being found to not adequately represent and include LGBTQIA+ people of colour, leading to dedicated spaces such as Black Pride.
Keep learning!?
There’s so much that can be learned about the Stonewall Uprising, the history of Pride, and how to practice allyship for LGBTQIA+ people beyond the month of June.
For anyone inspired to learn more, there are some resources I've gathered below that I've found useful for myself as a starting point (but not an end point!). These are only a selection; there is a wealth of information out there, with the caveat to always be mindful of your sources and where and who they're coming from (remember your basic History lessons, for those who studied history...!)
And while there will always be differences of opinion, as there are in all communities, always remember to listen out for sources rooted in the lived experiences of lesbians, gay people, trans people, people who are bisexual, non-binary, intersex, asexual, queer, two-spirit, and everyone else encompassed by the '+' - those who are gender non-conforming and those with different sexualities beyond heterosexual. And particularly those living within those intersections, such as LGBTQIA+ disabled people, people of colour and those of the Global Majority / Global South.
Have I missed anything out that you'd like to add? Have I gotten anything wrong that needs correcting? What resources have you found to be useful? Let me know in the comments :)
Learn more about Stonewall
Learn more about the first Pride marches and Pride's history
Learn more about trans experiences and allyship
Some selected additional resources
Image sources:
Do you need support with your internal EDI comms?
I use a research-based and collaborative approach rooted in Janet M. Stovall and Kim Clark's DEPTH model for conscious communications. Working together as partners, I can help ground your comms in:
I collaborate with you to: reach an agreed approach and messaging; do the research; write the baseline comms that also integrates any work your organisation is doing; and then share with you to finesse and finalise to make sure it's suitable for your context and ready for publishing.
Interested in finding out more? Get in touch and we can see if we're a match :)
My life's work is to ensure that humans have a validating, supportive, and engaging experience with technology. By meeting them where they are today I unlock experiences that allow them to achieve their wildest goals.
8 个月Thank you for spreading the story!
Pro-Reality Campaigner / Freelance Consultant (membership, engagement, governance)
8 个月Thank you for pointing out the myths that surround an important event in gay history. It's amazing how easily people just accept these as true because of how often they are repeated, and about how much gets left out because of that. I'd also add that Marsh and Sylvia were not transgender women. They were gay men and drag queens. Just as he is on tape confirming he wasn't there at the start of the riot, Marsha / Malcolm is on taped interview confirming he is a man, knows he is a man, how his 'clients' got surprised when they found out he wasn't a girl. It's important we don't erase or re-write the people from our history by applying modern day agendas to them.
Possibilitarian.
8 个月Thank you Shimrit Janes