Well, sort of. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. Starting the evening of June 28, 1969 and lasting for three days, young gays and drag queens rioted outside of the Stonewall Inn, a bar in New York City's Greenwhich Village. The riot began following a police raid on the bar, which was patronized by gay men and drag queens. The raid was under the guise of busting the club for having alchohol without a liquor license (the club was a "bottle club", run by the Mob, which had no liquor license and required that patrons sign in at the door), but police had been raiding and abusing gay bars and their patrons for years. Historians of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender movement frequently discuss the gay rights movement in terms of "Before Stonewall" and "After Stonewall" (and there are two documentaries by those names) because it was such a crucial event. Following the riots, gay activist groups sprung up around the nation, and a year later the first offical pride parade took place in New York.
It is often cited that Judy Garland's death and funeral, which happened a few days prior to the raids, fueled the patrons at the Stonewall Inn to fight back against the police. While historians will argue that the patrons at Stonewall were not the "Garland" kind of crowd due to their youth and lower class status, registries from the bar that show that many of them signed in to the bar using Judy Garland as a pseudonym prove otherwise.
In a year that had both incredible defeat and victory for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, we have much to celebrate - and much more work to do. Happy Pride 2009!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment