Stonewall

Today marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion, which is considered the single most important event in the fight for LGBT rights. The rebellion took place on the 28th June 1969, in the West Village, New York, the day of the funeral of Judy Garland. The two things were inextricably linked. Judy Garland wasn’t a gay icon simply because she sang Over The Rainbow. She passionately supported her gay fans in an era where she was effectively risking her career by doing so. When she died, there was a massive outpouring of grief from the LGBT community, and, as a result, the gay bars were due to be very crowded on the evening of her funeral. The police knew this fact, and it’s one of the reasons why their decision to raid the bar that night was so profoundly despicable.

Somewhat bizarrely, The Stonewall Inn was owned by the Italian mafia. It was an absolute dive. There was no running water behind the bar and no fire exits. It therefore tended to cater to the most marginalised members of the community, including butch lesbians, Latino and black gay folk, homeless young men, and trans-people. It was the only gay bar in New York where dancing was allowed.

Raids happened on a monthly basis. Customers were forced to line up against a wall and show their identity cards. Those without cards, or those in drag were immediately taken to police stations. Gay women were required to wear at least three items of feminine clothing to avoid being arrested. People in women’s clothing were forced to go to bathrooms with female police officers to “verify their gender.”

I would like to point out that all of this was going on just five years before I was born -

A high number of people were in the bar at 1.30am when police moved in. Some had never experienced a raid before and were absolutely terrified, trying to escape out of windows, all of which were blocked by police. 

The police were particularly callous that night and dissatisfaction spread rapidly when they started to inappropriately “feel up” some of the lesbians who had been lined up to show their papers.

But there was something in the air. Perhaps it was Judy Garland’s death, perhaps it was the wave of recent anti-Vietnam demonstrations, but those who were allowed to leave the bar didn’t simply scuttle into the shadows as normal. They hung around outside the bar. And a crowd started to gather (one of whom was Bob Dylan!)

As a second police van arrived, the crowd started to sing. At that point, a policeman violently shoved a transvestite, who retaliated by hitting him over the head with her handbag. The crowd booed the policeman and coins and bottles were thrown.

A young lesbian called Stormé Delaverie was dragged out of the bar in handcuffs. She squirmed out of the handcuffs, was re-cuffed, then squirmed out again, and so it went on for ten minutes until she was struck by a police baton. As she was man-handled into the back of a police wagon, she screamed at the crowd, “why don't you guys do something?” At that moment, the crowd went nuts, and the path of gay rights was altered permanently.

Drag queens fought in the street in their high heels. Quite why I find this particular fact so profoundly moving I’m not sure. It’s one of the reasons I get so angry when members of the trans lobby complain so vociferously about drag queens, because, let me tell you, when the shit hits the fan, you want a drag queen on your side. It was drag queens who mobilised and raised money for the early victims of AIDS, whilst the rest of us buried our heads in the sand.

Anyway, huge pieces of street furniture were ripped from the street. The police were so frightened, they barricaded themselves into the Stonewall Bar, before the angry mob used fire hydrants to batter the door down. The policemen would almost certainly have been killed - torn apart by people who had suffered such profound indignity for so long - if back up hadn’t arrived.

The disturbances went on for three days. The LGBT community used their intimate knowledge of the twisting streets of Greenwich Village, New York, where the bar was situated. There’s an account of police chasing one group of youths down a street and emerging in another with the youths chasing them! Many refer to the event as a riot. Those who were there prefer the term “rebellion” because they were defending themselves and fighting back rather than rushing around, smashing anything they could find.

What the disturbances effectively did was raise awareness of the plight of LGBT people, whilst simultaneously sending a message to the police that they couldn’t continue to treat the community with such contempt. Sympathy for the community spread as stories of police brutality were reported in the media and the struggle became a pride movement, which ultimately led to men like me being able to get married on national TV.




Men, women and other folk of Stonewall. I salute you.