Queer History 112: Stonewall, That Is All I Need Say

And Honestly, I Can't Write Enough About It, When the most marginalized finally said "enough" and changed LGBTQ+ history forever

You think you know about Stonewall? You've seen the sanitized Pride parade floats sponsored by banks and heard the watered-down history lessons that make it sound like a polite protest? Let me tell you something—the Stonewall Riots weren't some peaceful demonstration with clever signs and coordinated chants. It was a violent, messy, desperate fight for survival led by the most marginalized people in the queer community. It was broken bottles and bricks, police barricades in flames, and drag queens handcuffing cops to bathroom pipes. It was six fucking nights of rage that had been building for decades.

The story of Stonewall doesn't start with the first punch thrown on June 28, 1969. It starts with years of relentless police harassment, raids, arrests, and brutality against LGBTQ+ people—especially against transgender women, drag queens, butch lesbians, and people of color. It starts with lives lived in shadows and fear. What happened at the Stonewall Inn wasn't just a spontaneous riot—it was an inevitable explosion after years of oppression. And it changed everything.

The Shittiest Bar That Started a Revolution

Let's be clear about one thing: the Stonewall Inn was a dump. A mafia-owned dive bar at 53 Christopher Street in Greenwich Village, it had no running water behind the bar, watered-down drinks, and toilets that regularly overflowed. But in 1969 New York, it was one of the few places where queer people could dance together, where gay men could touch, where drag queens and transgender women could exist without immediate arrest.

"It was a toilet," remembers Martin Boyce, who was there that night. "But it was our toilet. The only place many of us could be ourselves."

The bar operated under the protection of payoffs to the police, but raids still happened regularly. Usually, the cops would tip off the owners, who would in turn warn the patrons. The lights would flick on, people would separate and straighten their clothes, those in drag would remove their makeup, and when the police arrived, they'd find nothing technically illegal happening. A few might be arrested, usually those without ID or in full drag, but most would be released after the bar paid its bribe.

But on the hot summer night of June 28, 1969, something different happened. The raid came without warning. Eight plainclothes and uniformed officers entered the bar around 1:20 AM, announcing "Police! We're taking the place!" They demanded identification from everyone and arranged for those in women's clothing to be taken to the bathroom and "verified" by female officers—a humiliating physical examination to determine their biological sex.

"They'd finger your asshole to see if you had a vagina," recalled Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, a Black transgender woman who was at Stonewall that night. "And then arrested you when they didn't find one. Tell me how the fuck that's legal."

"I've Been in Jail Before. I'm Not Going Again."

As the police began loading people into paddy wagons, the crowd that had gathered outside didn't disperse as they usually did. It was growing, and getting angrier by the minute. Something in the air was different. Some say it was because Judy Garland—a gay icon—had been buried that day. Others point to the heat, the full moon, or the simple fact that people had just had enough.

The exact spark that ignited the riot remains disputed. Some accounts say a lesbian being shoved into a police car fought back, inspiring others. Many credit Marsha P. Johnson, a Black transgender woman, with throwing the first shot glass (the "shot glass heard around the world") or Sylvia Rivera, a Latina transgender activist, with throwing the first bottle. Others say it was a collective moment when many people simultaneously decided not to comply.

What is clear is that someone—likely butch lesbian Stormé DeLarverie after being hit by an officer's baton—shouted to the crowd, "Why don't you guys do something?" And suddenly, the crowd did.

"I've been in jail before," Rivera later recalled saying that night. "I'm not going again."

What followed was a chaotic battle. The outnumbered police retreated back into the Stonewall Inn and barricaded themselves inside for protection. The crowd started throwing anything they could find—coins, bottles, bricks, garbage, flaming trash cans. Someone uprooted a parking meter and used it as a battering ram against the bar's doors. Others squeezed lighter fluid through the cracks of the door and threw matches, trying to burn the police out.

"You've Been Treating Us Like Shit All These Years. Now It's Our Turn!"

As police reinforcements arrived, they were met with an unprecedented level of resistance. Drag queens formed kick lines, mocking the officers with exaggerated dance moves before charging them. Gay men and lesbians formed human chains to block police movements. Some accounts describe rioters using their high heels as weapons.

"It was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen," remembered Rivera. "For once, we were fighting back. We'd been passive for so fucking long."

The tactical police unit, the TPF (Tactical Police Force), eventually dispersed the crowd, but the riots weren't over—not by a long shot. For the next five nights, thousands returned to Christopher Street and the surrounding area to protest. Each night brought new clashes with police, new fires, new barricades, and a growing sense that something fundamental had changed in the fight for LGBTQ+ rights.

"I remember someone shouting, 'You've been treating us like shit all these years. Now it's our turn!'" recalled Boyce. "That's when I knew this wasn't just another raid. This was a revolution."

The most marginalized members of the community—the drag queens, the transgender women, the butch lesbians, the homeless queer youth, and queer people of color—were at the forefront of the fighting. These were people who couldn't hide, who embodied their queerness visibly, who had nothing left to lose.

The Brutal Truth About Who Led the Charge

Here's where we need to set the record straight: Stonewall wasn't led by the respectable, middle-class gay men who would later claim its legacy. It was started and sustained by the most vulnerable and visible members of the LGBTQ+ community—particularly transgender women of color like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera.

"The drag queens were the vanguard," insists historian David Carter. "Those who could not or would not hide their sexuality from society at large were the ones who stood their ground and fought back."

Johnson, a Black transgender woman and sex worker who called herself the "mayor of Christopher Street," was among the first to fight back on that June night. Rivera, a Latina transgender activist who had been homeless since age 11, was described by witnesses as "in the vanguard" of the riots. Stormé DeLarverie, a biracial butch lesbian who performed as a male impersonator, reportedly threw the first punch after being struck by police.

Yet for decades, their contributions were minimized or erased completely. Early commemorations and historical accounts of Stonewall centered white, cisgender gay men. Even today, films like "Stonewall" (2015) have been criticized for whitewashing the riots, placing fictional white gay men at the center of events that were actually led by transgender women of color.

"They wanted to take Stonewall away from us," Rivera said bitterly in a speech shortly before her death in 2002. "They put us on the back burner, like we were nothing. But we were the frontliners."

From Riot to Movement: "Gay Power!"

The morning after the first night of rioting, graffiti appeared on the boarded-up windows of the Stonewall Inn: "THEY INVADED OUR RIGHTS" and "SUPPORT GAY POWER." Leaflets circulated calling for organized resistance: "GET THE MAFIA AND COPS OUT OF GAY BARS."

Within weeks, activist groups like the Gay Liberation Front and the Gay Activists Alliance formed, adopting more radical tactics than the "homophile" organizations that preceded them. These new groups didn't ask politely for tolerance; they demanded full equality and liberation. They organized sit-ins, "kiss-ins," and direct confrontations with politicians and police.

On the first anniversary of the riots, the first Pride marches (then called "Christopher Street Liberation Day" marches) were held in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Unlike today's corporate-sponsored parades, these were explicitly political protests, with chants like "Say it loud, gay is proud!" and "2, 4, 6, 8, gay is just as good as straight!"

Craig Rodwell, who organized the first march, remembered: "We had no idea how many people would turn up. When thousands showed up in New York, we knew everything had changed. We weren't hiding anymore. We were coming out fighting."

The Price Paid by the Pioneers

While Stonewall catalyzed the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement, many of its frontline participants didn't live to see the progress their courage made possible. Johnson was found dead in the Hudson River in 1992, her death initially dismissed by police as suicide despite evidence suggesting she may have been murdered. Rivera struggled with homelessness and addiction before her death from liver cancer in 2002.

"The movement we started took off without us," Rivera said in her last speech. "After Stonewall, the white, middle-class gays started taking over. It was their movement now. They had the money and the power."

When the Gay Activists Alliance created a community center, Rivera fought for it to include services for homeless youth and transgender people. When she was blocked from speaking at the 1973 Pride rally, she grabbed the microphone anyway: "You go to bars because of what drag queens did for you, and these bitches tell us to quit being ourselves!"

Even as the movement gained momentum and visibility, many of the Stonewall rioters remained marginalized, not just by mainstream society but by the very movement they had helped create. As the push for gay rights became more focused on marriage equality and military service—issues that primarily benefited white, middle-class gay men and lesbians—transgender rights, housing for homeless queer youth, and protections for sex workers fell by the wayside.

"The movement became about who could assimilate fastest," observes historian and activist Kai Shappley. "The more respectable you could appear to straight society, the more valued you were. But that wasn't what Stonewall was about at all. It was about the right to be different, to be yourself without apologizing."

The Ongoing Battle for Stonewall's Legacy

Today, the Stonewall Inn is a National Monument, recognized by the federal government for its historical significance. Pride parades around the world mark the anniversary of the riots. But the true legacy of Stonewall remains contested.

"Every fucking corporation wants to slap a rainbow on their logo in June," notes activist Jennicet Gutiérrez. "But how many of them are fighting for transgender rights? How many are working to protect queer youth from homelessness? How many are challenging police brutality against LGBTQ+ people of color? That's the real test of whether you honor Stonewall."

The tensions that emerged after Stonewall—between assimilation and liberation, between respectability politics and radical resistance—continue to shape LGBTQ+ activism today. As marriage equality has been achieved in many countries, activists debate whether the movement has lost its radical edge, becoming too focused on rights that benefit those already privileged within the community.

"Stonewall wasn't about asking nicely for our rights," emphasizes transgender activist Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, one of the few living veterans of the riots. "It was about demanding them, about fighting for our lives. That spirit is needed now more than ever."

In recent years, efforts to recenter transgender women of color in the Stonewall narrative have gained traction. The 2019 installation of statues honoring Johnson and Rivera near the Stonewall Inn represents one step toward acknowledging their crucial roles. But as anti-transgender legislation proliferates across the United States and LGBTQ+ rights face renewed challenges globally, many argue that truly honoring Stonewall means embracing its radical spirit of resistance.

The Fire Still Burns: Stonewall's Relevance Today

Fifty-plus years after Stonewall, LGBTQ+ people still face violence, discrimination, and persecution worldwide. In many countries, being gay remains illegal, punishable by imprisonment or death. Even in nations with legal protections, hate crimes and everyday discrimination persist.

The battle lines have shifted. Today's frontlines include:

• Fighting against a record number of anti-transgender bills in state legislatures

• Protecting queer youth from conversion therapy and homelessness

• Addressing the epidemic of violence against transgender women of color

• Challenging the criminalization of HIV and sex work

• Defending inclusive education against "Don't Say Gay" laws

"The spirit of Stonewall isn't preserved in monuments or museums," argues activist and author Raquel Willis. "It's alive in every protest against police brutality, in every rally for transgender rights, in every fight against systems that crush the most vulnerable."

When Black Lives Matter protesters took to the streets following the murder of George Floyd, many LGBTQ+ activists noted the parallels to Stonewall—another uprising against police violence that began with the most marginalized taking a stand. When transgender people and allies rally against discriminatory legislation, they invoke the spirit of Johnson and Rivera.

"Riots Are the Language of the Unheard"

The radical legacy of Stonewall reminds us that progress doesn't always come through polite requests and incremental change. Sometimes it takes disruption, confrontation, and yes, even riots.

"When you're treated as less than human, when your existence is criminalized, when police can harass and assault you with impunity—playing by the rules isn't an option," explains queer historian Eric Marcus. "The queens and street kids who fought back at Stonewall didn't have the luxury of respectability politics. They fought back because their lives depended on it."

As Martin Luther King Jr. famously said, "Riots are the language of the unheard." At Stonewall, those who had been unheard for too long finally made themselves impossible to ignore. They didn't just demand a seat at the table—they flipped the whole damn table over and built something new.

The next time you see a rainbow flag flying from a bank or a corporate logo turned into a Pride symbol, remember what Stonewall actually was: a violent uprising led by the most marginalized members of the LGBTQ+ community against police brutality and systemic oppression. It wasn't neat or pretty or respectable. It was raw, angry, and necessary.

And if that makes you uncomfortable, good. It should. Because as Marsha P. Johnson said when asked what the "P" in her name stood for: "Pay it no mind." She didn't care about respectability or approval. Neither did the other rioters at Stonewall. They were fighting for their right to exist without persecution, and they changed the world.

That's the true legacy of Stonewall—not just what happened on those six nights in June 1969, but the ongoing struggle for liberation that continues today. The fight that began at a dingy bar in Greenwich Village isn't over. Not by a long shot.

References

1. Carter, D. (2004). Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution.

2. Duberman, M. (1993). Stonewall: The Definitive Story of the LGBTQ Rights Uprising that Changed America.

3. Rivera, S. (2001, June 2001). Queens in Exile, the Forgotten Ones. LGBTQ Nation.

4. France, D. (Director). (2017). The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson [Documentary].

5. Kasino, M. (Director). (2012). Pay It No Mind: The Life and Times of Marsha P. Johnson [Documentary].

6. The NYC Trans Oral History Project. (2018). Interview with Miss Major Griffin-Gracy.

7. Marcus, E. (2002). Making Gay History: The Half-Century Fight for Lesbian and Gay Equal Rights.

8. Armstrong, E. A., & Crage, S. M. (2006). Movements and Memory: The Making of the Stonewall Myth. American Sociological Review.

9. Willis, R. (2019, June 28). The Stonewall Riot Didn't Start the Gay Rights Movement. The Atlantic.