On June 27, 1969 for the umpteenth time the cops raided the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village New York. But what was so different this time is the trans people and the gays beat back. Started by the darg queens and hormone queens, they didn't accept any longer to be harassed, to be taken to the drunk tank for being together, for being not the regular type of human.
This page has been made up from serveral accounts from people who were there at the time. Also other external sources have been used. No credits at the moment. They will come however, as asoon as this is really finished.
Stonewall Inn was perceived as a drag bar, but Sylvia Rivera disputed that, saying "they wouldn't allow the drag queens in there." Instead it was a bar where white middle class patrons came to pick up hustlers. And the actual flash point for the rioters was not Judy Garland's death, as popularly theorized, but the fact that the police came for the second time in a week to raid the bar. They already had had their payoff for that week. The Public Morals Section of the New York Police inspected the establishment and declared that it was operated illegally without a liquor license. Around this time, raids on bars known to cater to the gay populace were common. Sometimes, patrons would be arrested and their names would be publicized in a police record in a newspaper. People regularly were taken to the druk tank and beaten up or even raped. So the patrons and the staff at Stonewall Inn was not new to this procedure.
The street girl who was the first to be arrested snatched the keys from the police and ran into the bar. When the police began the arrests, it was pocket change that was thrown at them (a reference to a common practice at the time for police to take payoffs to keep from busting a bar too frequently.) Once riot police began a line movement down Christopher Street, "the street kids formed a chorus line, kicking their legs in the air and chanting 'penny, nickel, quarter, dime'".
The news of that night, however, spread throughout town. For the next two nights, large crowds roamed the city streets in protests and had several violent confrontation with the police.
The significance of the Stonewall Riot is not they managed to get the police to stop the raiding. The raiding continued for some time yet following the Stonewall Riot. The significance is that this was the first time that gay and trans people stood up for themselves against what they perceived as unjust persecution. While homophile organizations like the Mattachine Society existed in the U.S. as early as the 50's, it was the Stonewall Riot that put the modern gay liberation movement under the limelight for the first time. It brought the gay liberation into the public consciousness.
For a newsarticle from the Greenwich Village Voiice of the day after see Stonewall-history
But was the Village Gay friendly in 1966? Not really! Barbara Judith Marie :"I can vividly remember the New York City Police Department's Tactical Patrol Force (TPF) chasing me and other "face queens," away from the front of the Northern Dispensary. They would yell, "Move it, faggots!" from a cruising patrol car. You could not even stop on a street corner to talk with someone without be asked to "move on." Water balloons and buckets of water would be thrown off roofs and out apartment house windows on us. Our makeup, being water-based, would run and become a mess. And, of course, there were always horror stories of fruit looping and fruit bashing (Gay bashings). If you complained to the cops about a beating, they would finish the job themselves. What kept my spirits up was the fact that I was with other people just like me, I felt a part of something for the first time in my life."
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On a saved and published photograph of the Stonewall Inn you can see several writings. The plea for quiet conduct by the New York Mattachine Society is the large lettering on the window between the two doors. The window contains these hand-written messages: "We homosexuals plead with our people to please help maintain peaceful and quiet conduct on the streets of the village - Mattachine." Written to the right of the above message in much smaller letters: "Residents of this street - St John's Episcopal church meeting this Wednesday to listen to your complaints" Under this message, Mattachine announced their meeting: "A meeting for homosexuals will be held the following Monday - Mattachine" "Chuck and F' 4 ever" Inside a heart. This is the only surviving photo out of a series of six photos.. The new photo of the Stonewall was taken in June 1999. This section of Christopher Street has been renamed Stonewall Place.
It depends who you are talking to. If you ask gays and lesbians about the changes, they may tell you about the equal employment opportunity acts, about the liquor laws having changed, about protection against sexual discrimination and harassment on the job. Street gays, diesel dykes and other queers may answer that some laws have changed in the USA, but still if you ar not an "ordinary" man or woman, your life still is not safe. Look at the site "Remembering our Dead". There you will find the names of those who passed away by cause of violence. It is just those transgenedered people that came to knowledge of the people at gender.org .
In the European Union indeed almost all countries have equal opportunities legislation also. But even in the Netherlands, where everybody believes everything is better, being employed in the civil sector is not a guarantee against problems on the job, as research for the ABVAKABO-FNV, dutch civil servants union, proved. In the UK problems are very much alike those in the USA, see e.g. the site of Press for Change. The more south you go, the bigger the problems are: in France you can hardly get SRS, Spain and Portugal used to be sensible for your wishes if you paid enough money, if you bribe them. Just like Turkey: if you're rich you can buy protection or justice.
Outside of the EU things usually are worse: Look at the site of Amnesty International. And as I said before: even in Europe things need to change a lot before you can even call it "satisfactory".
For (US/UK) activists you can find a document called transgender-equality at the NGLTF-site. With some changes it may be useful for people in other contexts also.
As you see, gay/lesbian and transgender is very much mixed up in this story. So it is for me: we are all family, if not by choice, then by need. On the west side of the ocean it may be more clear than here in Europe or maybe I should say on the Continent.
In continental Europe there is less tradition of working together between transgendered people and the LGB-movement. In Europe the transgenders have hardly begun to organze for their rights. What has been achieved, comes because of slowly changing medical and judicial attitudes. At least in the Netherlands, Belgium, everything is very much organized around social and medical help.
In France there are two more or less 'competing' organizations for transgendered people, Caritig and the ASB (Association du Syndrome de Benjamin) and first mentioned is politically and socially the most active, present at Gay Pride and other events, it ironically is the second that organizes a yearly demonstration for elemental medical and juridical trans-rights. Well, that 's at least something better than only sitting around and complaining you are to be pitied because you've got a disease: Benjamin's syndrome (after Harry Benjamin, author of the Transsexual Phenomenon, the long time trans bible).
About german developments I am not really on the current. But a few years ago, the groups were disputing each other or just busy with self-help (very necesssary, but not enough). And there also is of course a possible build-up in the former GDR, East-Germany.
If you have information about developments in Southern or Eastern Europe, I'd like to hear about them. I'm just a vreer, not superman.