lgbtqa pride
from stonewall to today
-grace
it’s june...this is a time for bbq’s, sunblock and lgbtqa pride. so why the hell is it in june and why the hell do we need gay pride?
i have to say, this is honestly one of my favorite topics of all the times!!! so get out your hankies, buckle up and come with me on a vibrant, chaotic and glittery look at the induction of gay and gay associated human beings into the human rights hall of fame!
there are many reasons the gay people in the stonewall inn and those standing outside that night stopped being good little fags and started fighting back. some say it started with the death of judy garland, the largest gay icon at the time. she died june 22, 1969 of an overdose of barbiturates. another major factor was in 1969 the civil rights movement had gotten wings and was sweeping the nation forcing mainstream society to look at people as people and not as “those others”. equality was being demanded by all people, and it was finally time for the gay community to enter into that domain.
june 28, 1969 in greenwich village new york, new york at about 1 am the police raided a dive bar, owned by the mafia, called the stonewall inn. seeing as how there were no “gay” bars, certain establishments would open their doors to the queers on certain nights-really money is money, gay or otherwise. the police were as aware of which bars allowed homosexuals to fraternize, as aware as the homosexuals themselves were.
a typical night, and a typical raid from the local police usually went down like this:
there were undercover cops in the club ensuring the cops a “legit” reason for the raid. the the cops would direct the bar’s attendees to the restrooms and make them expose their genitals. if a man had on a dress or a woman had on a suit guaranteed walk to the wagon, or if the implanted cops had spied “homosexual/immoral activity” off to the human zoo they went.
but on june 28, 1969 things changed. during the raid there was an undercurrent of animosity, but the gays did as they were supposed to-lined up, humiliated themselves by exposing genitals while some armed person in authority barked horrible, derogatory things. but when the doors to the stonewall inn were open the scene outside was different. usually the mobsters were taken out first, which delighted the ever growing crowd of people. they knew these were the people who didn’t give one solitary fuck about the rights of the queer, but queer money is easily passed