On the night of June 28, 1969, a routine police raid on a bar on Christopher Street, in the New York neighborhood of Greenwich Village, changed the course of history for the LGBTQIA+ population (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual and other variations) in the US and, subsequently, in the rest of the world.
At the time, homosexuality was considered a crime in almost all US states, with the exception of Illinois. Therefore, the police used to “raid” places frequented by this public. However, 54 years ago, something changed.
Contrary to what always happened, the police did not find the usual passivity. Until then, they fed the idea that LGBTQIA+ were passive, fearful and that they did not react to attacks and arrests. They relied on an anti-homosexual legal system.
Early activism groups in the country tried to prove that gays could be assimilated into society and supported a non-confrontational educational system for gays and straights.
Few establishments welcomed openly gay people in the 1960s. The Stonewall Inn was owned by the Mafia group Cosa Nostra Americana. He sold expensive counterfeit drinks. Those who accepted this were unassuming gays, effeminate young people, masculinized lesbians, prostitutes, homeless young people, drag queens, drag kings and transvestites.
As a result, police raids in these places were routine. However, history would be rewritten that Saturday night.
By putting drag queens, transvestites, lesbians and gays who were at The Stonewall In bar in the van, the police were surprised by the reactions. The future prisoners made faces and mockery. Reacting to the provocation, the police increased the degree of violence in the coercion. The crowd accompanying the “Salve Geral” also reacted and started throwing coins at the police. It was a way of saying they ‘were not worth a nickel’.
Afterwards, bottles and stones were thrown. Patrons and staff from neighboring bars joined those already in the Stonewall surroundings.
The police car was turned upside down. Six police officers ran into the bar to hide from the growing number of rebels.
The confusion lasted for three days, with reinforcements on both sides. On the second day, it gained support from neighbors, the radical Black Panthers group, other anti-Vietnam War movements and even LGBTQIA+ from the middle and upper classes.
“We gave a clear answer, a payback. Stonewall was a bar frequented by poor gay, trans and lesbians. It wasn’t just middle-class whites. They were blacks and Latinos who rebelled against recurrent police violence”, argues filmmaker René Guerra, director of the films ‘Os Sapatos de Aristeu e Vaca Profana’, which addresses the trans theme.
Marsha P Johnson @ Randy Wicker
“It was in hand-to-hand, stone-to-stone, that Marsha (P. Johnson), and her companions managed to widely inaugurate something much bigger than a movement, they will make her visible in a way of existence”, completes the journalist and university professor Fabiana Moraes, citing the black activist and drag queen Marsha P. Johnson, one of the protagonists of Batalha, who years later had an unexplained death.
Screenwriter and publicist Tony Góes points to the unprecedented reaction of this population.
“There will always be those who say that there was gay activism before the Stonewall Rising. It’s true: in Europe and in other states of the United States, associations and magazines dedicated to homosexuals existed since at least the 1940s. But it was all very secret, and with almost no repercussions outside a very small circle. Stonewall changed all that. There were three days of revolt, with plenty of press coverage and support from non-LGBT supporters. That is why the uprising is considered the zero point in the history of the struggle for equal rights”.
It is important to remember that the press coverage was a succession of errors. It omitted, made mistakes and abused different types of prejudices. Very few journalists had any interest in this population.
The Stonewall Uprising awakened an identity perception in the LGBTQIA+ population (at the time, the word gay was used to refer to everyone) in the USA. Then in other countries.
Stonewall Inn New York May 2014 @ Reproduction
In 1970, over two thousand people took to the streets on June 28 in New York to celebrate the first anniversary of the episode. A seed was planted for what would become the LGBTQIA+ Pride Parades that now take place in almost every country since then.
“From the events of Stonewall, the homosexual population began to understand what a war was, that it had an army and could fight. It was when the LGBTs came out of the condition of invisibility to say that they were also a political force”, analyzes Chico Fireman, journalist and film critic.
“When those pioneers took to the streets, they inspired people around the world and generations beyond, and for the first time they went out to demand respect. From the mud of intolerance a flower sprouted”.
Like this:
Like Loading…