In his LA Weekly piece today remembering the thirty-ninth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, Patrick Range McDonald summarizes the events of the day (well, evening) and its significance: “an angry bunch of drag queens and effeminate gay men pushed back after New York City police officers raided the place, and subsequently started the modern gay rights movement.“**SEE UP- & UP-UPDATE BELOW**
These flamboyant gays pushed back because officers of the state attempted to prevent them from assembling peacefully and associating with others like them. In short, the state was limiting their freedom.
Those who rioted weren’t demanding equality or any kind of government privilege, but were rebelling as did the patriots standing up against the British nearly two centuries before them. They were standing up for their freedom. They wanted to be left alone to live their lives as they chose.
As we call those riots on their anniversary, let us consider how far we’ve come since then. We should be grateful for those drag queens who did what others less flamboyant refused to do. They really showed courage.
Back then, police frequently raided gay bars — and not just in New York. Back then, our fellows could not assemble as freely as could their straight counterparts nor could they live as openly as we do today. No states granted domestic partnership benefits. Nor did many corporations. No presidential candidate would meet with our representatives. In fact, there were only a handful of gay political groups at the time. Now, there are multitudes, appealing to the many diverse interests of our community.
Thirty-nine years ago, a bunch of drag queens and other flamboyant gays had had enough of the heavy hand of the state, with police preventing them from assembling freely. As we celebrate that anniversary, we should bear in mind that modern “gay rights'” movement began with individuals rioting for freedom.
As did the movements of many other once-oppressed groups throughout our nation’s history going back to our founding.
UPDATE: In 2002, Dale Carpenter challenged the Myth of a Transgender Stonewall.
UP-UPDATE: Looks like the Stonewall history I learned from my gay peers was wrong. It wasn’t a bunch drag queens, but a bunch of middle class white boys (with a few drag queens joining them). Writer Eric Marcus (whose book, Together Forever: Gay and Lesbian Marriage I much enjoyed) provides the details here. But, I did get the spirit of the riot right. As Marcus writes
So the streets weren’t filled with drag queens in sequins and heels. . . . But gay people — fluffy sweater boys, dykes, sissies, college students, boys in chinos and penny loafers — did in fact challenge police repression. They were finally pushed to the point where they’d had enough, and they fought back.
And what do today’s parades have to do with it? You’d think they’d mention that somewhere.
On a similar note:
This reminds me, as I’ve said, I never got my gay membership package. Therefore, I never knew what the gay affinity for Judy Garland was all about. I remember somebody telling me once, long ago, that her death was at least part of the reason for the riot. Does anybody know?
Dale Carpenter’s rendition is a more accurate reading of what the Stonewall was like at the time. No drag queens. No trannies. It was a white, middle class somewhat of a masculine bar that wouldn’t have let drag queens in. While raiding bars was already on the decline by the late 60s, it did happen particularly to establishments that never had a liquor license, like the Stonewall.
Okay I wasn’t there but knew firsthand people who were. It was a hot, muggy summer night. Late. People were a little buzzed on the booze and possibly some weed. The cops raided the joint. And suddenly, for no apparent good reason, some gay guy on the street threw something at the cops, the rest joined in and the fight was on. The cops retreated. It made national news. The cops tried it again and the results were the same. Rioting in Greenwich Village. The guys had won. We were just sick of the bull shit, that’s all.
Judy Garland’s death? Please. This wasn’t some weepy sissy bar. She probably wasn’t even on the juke box. I was there that summer and only remembered the standard loud dance music being played. But even then the place had an aura of history about it. You knew things were never going to be the same as they were. And they weren’t.
They reaffirmed the self-evident truth… we’re all created equal.
Carpenter’s piece is interesting. Still, a neighbor I grew up around in NYC (certifiably “transgender” by today’s standards) was there. Later, c. 1990, when extreme LGBTetc. activists tutored me that drag rebellion was the essence of Stonewall, I didn’t question it. Remember too that the riots continued for several nights: what was initially spontaneous became a calculated, sustained provocation….
This sums up my sense of it:
As time has passed, the mythology of Stonewall has come to valorize drag queens as the champions of political and cultural revolution. That’s probably missing the point that it was the anti-Establishment tenor of the times, hippie nonchalance and joie de vivre, gay men’s sense of being outsiders, and, very importantly, the drugs — and then the sense of numbers and power observed at Garland’s funeral — that gave the patrons at the Stonewall Inn the impulse to resist the police that night.
I remember the next morning a few lines about some rioting in
lower Mahattan. No big deal, I thought but somehow the idea of freedom for the masses sounded like a great issue to advocate for. . i think as the years go on, history becomes a magnifying glass for all of us. Next year will be the fortieth and it will be bigger than this one.
Carpenter makes some good points but Bill, did you actually read the article? If so, you had best go back and read it again, because what he wrote and what you said he wrote are barely connected. Certainly there is a mythology that has built up over the decadest BUT the drag queens and sissies (as you call them) were there, and that is a FACT that cannot be argued. And *GASP* there were non-white people there too, and low class people, and hustlers. I know that for many middle class white gay men drag queens and sissies are an inconvenience you would rather hide away but please, rewriting history is a bit desperate don’t you think? Slyvia Rivera was a friend of mine and I’d rather have one of her over 100 “white middle-class masculine men” fighting for my rights. The days of that kind of action are over (for now anyway) but it still takes men, women AND transgender folk with backbone, who aren’t afraid of who they are, to continue the fight and to preserve what we have won so far against the forces who would like to take it all away. I am not trying to imply that all white middle class masculine men are afraid of who they are, but some are clearly threatened by anyone who can’t “pass”. Shitting on allies is a poor way to win a battle.
#7, There are many ironies and blindspots in the Stonewall’s history and its myths. (History is different than myth, but both are vital.) A cramped basement bar as the focus of modern gay “rebellion” is a mixed blessing, if it is a blessing.
The revisionist history on this topic is stunning. What is equally amazing is the lack of primary sources, no backup of witnesses whose first person claims are left to go unchallenged and a huge load of bullshit. Drag gueen’s stories without a single backup source are regarded as some sort of holy gospel.
The Stonewall was raided. There was no magical kum-buy-ah moment where everyone fought the law. It was a 60s moment where enough was enough. Trannies in the 60s? Even in NYC basically unheard of. Drag Queens? Sure when performing. There was some guy dressed in a tutu and on roller skates and a wand at a Village Subway stop named RollerArena. But sad to say, the event, the first night anyway, started as a group of middle class white boys sick of being carted off by the cops. The time was ripe and so was the moment. It was the 60s. Not some magical mythical We Shall Overcome moment.
Judy Garland sympathy? Spare me. Imagine Cher or Barbra Streisand kicking the bucket today. Sad, but histrionics are for the weepy, crazy queens who don’t have lives. Stonewall started something, but the revisionist history on this topic is unbelievably appalling. And incredibly inaccurate.
Hollywood Bill, your comment corresponds with an e-mail I received via a listserv where I posted this piece. As soon as I get the article linked, I’ll post it as update and wonder the history I was taught was more myth, the bad kind.
“Trannies in the 60s? Even in NYC basically unheard of”
What is your f’ing problem? Of course there were even if they didn’t fit the definition used today. There are multiple sources of information that confirm that, include “trannies” themselves. Were the Stonewall rioters all drag queens etc. NO, and I’ve never heard anyone say they were. And all it takes is a simple google search to expose the insanity of your claims. If you have some bizarre need to deny the contributions of those who were/are not middle class white men then go for it. But history, real history including the sources that you and GPW refer to, says that it simply not true. In your reality I suppose Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Moses, Golda Meir, and all others over the centuries who have made major contributions towards the freedom of their fellow human beings were all middle class white men. Stunning revisionist history indeed and the oppression continues.