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.

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.

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.

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.

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?