30 years later
Stonewall still means 'Fight back!'
By
Leslie Feinberg
This June, in small towns and large cities across the United
States, lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and trans people are
taking to the streets. All told, hundreds of thousands will
march while millions of people of all sexualities and genders
will line the routes to cheer their courage to be out and
proud.
This year is the 30th commemoration of the Stonewall
Rebellion. That uprising in Greenwich Village against police
repression marked the beginning of the mass
lesbian/gay/bi/trans liberation movement.
The battle at the Stonewall Inn, sparked by a vicious police
raid, brought many different combatants into the fray--African
American, Latina and white drag queens, trans sexuals and
butches, and others from the lesbian, gay and bisexual
communities. Some were youths, homeless, forced into
prostitution in order to cobble together a living.
Armed with only the change in their pockets, bottles and
small rocks, they fought the cops so valiantly that the police
retreated and barricaded themselves inside the Stonewall bar.
Members of the crowd actually uprooted a parking meter and
tried to use it as a battering ram to get their hands on the
brutal cops.
Lifetimes of rage at harassment and humiliation fueled the
rebellion. And it wasn't the first time gay or trans people
fought back against their oppressions.
The crucible of struggles in the 1960s had lent impetus and
form to this social explosion. Many lesbian/gay/bi/trans
activists had learned valuable insights and skills in the
movements against Jim Crow segregation and other forms of
racism and national oppression, against police brutality, and
in the growing anti-Vietnam War struggle.
After the Stonewall Rebellion, the banners of the young gay
liberation movement were visible at virtually every
demonstration against the Pentagon bombardment of Vietnam, the
systematic government repression targeting the Black Panther
Party, Young Lords and American Indian Movement, and in defense
of Chicano workers organizing the United Farm Workers.
This solidarity earned significant allies for the
multinational struggle for gay liberation. Support came
swiftest and strong est from the more revolutionary and
militant sectors of movements of the oppressed.
Shortly after the Stonewall Rebellion, Black Panther Party
leader Huey P. Newton issued a revolutionary statement calling
for unity with the gay liberation movement.
The Young Lords Party and Youth Against War &
Fascism--the youth group of Workers World Party--formed
internal lesbian and gay caucuses.
Leaders of the United Farm Workers offered firm support for
gay rights.
Even the more conservative currents in the peace movement
eventually acknowledged lesbian and gay activist participation,
which was supported by the left wing of the anti-war
movement.
Over the years, involvement by the gay liberation movement
in these and other struggles on so many fronts--from women's
liberation to defense of political prisoners--helped reshape
consciousness about sexual and gender oppression. And it helped
build the support that many sectors of society today feel for
the lesbian/ gay/bi/trans movement.
Today, June is known as Pride Month in the United States.
Not just pride in being lesbian or gay or bisexual. Not just
pride in being transsexual or transgender or intersexual.
It's also pride in the collective fight-back movement that
emerged from a four-night-long uprising against
institutionalized repression and inequality.
It is the historic achievements of that movement that have
made it so much easier to be out and proud today in the
struggle against lesbian/gay/bi/trans oppression.
And this year there's more to be proud of than ever.
Making history together
The rise in right-wing bashings and the Klan-style lynchings
of Matthew Shepard, Billy Jack Gaither and Edward Northington
did not marginalize or push this embattled movement back into
the closet.
On the contrary, lesbian/gay/bi/trans activists came out to
express rage and resistance in towns and campuses all across
the United States. And they were joined by heterosexual loved
ones, fellow students, co-workers and neighbors who stood
shoulder to shoulder in unity.
When the state moved closer to executing political prisoner
Mumia Abu-Jamal this spring, lesbian, gay, bi and trans support
work geared up to a fever pitch under the banner of "Rainbow
Flags for Mumia."
At the April 24 marches in Philadelphia and San Francisco
rainbow flags--the symbol of multinational lesbian/gay/bi/trans
unity--were emblazoned on posters, hand-made signs, stickers
and buttons throughout the massive marches.
And not everyone who purposely carried or wore that symbol
was gay or transgender, either.
At the same time, Abu-Jamal wrote his supporters from death
row about the need to unite to stop the surge in gay
bashing.
In New York, the fight against police violence continues.
For example, a group of white anti-racist lesbian/gay/bi/trans
activists were among the first to be arrested at protests led
by the oppressed communities against the Feb. 4 police
assassination of African immigrant Amadou Diallo.
A national right-wing mobilization against abortion and gay
rights in Buffalo, N.Y., in April didn't push the struggle back
into the closet either. The lesbian/gay /bi/ trans communities
were the spearhead of united self-defense squads. And that
city's annual Pride march this year grew to 4,000 compared to
past gatherings of hundreds.
Just as the young gay liberation movement was an important
contingent in the mass anti-Vietnam War struggles, lesbian/
gay/bi/trans activists also took part in defending Yugoslavia
against NATO bombardment.
These anti-war activists know that rising militarism
bolsters bigots and bashers. The military machine promotes a
"Rambo" view of manhood that encourages the victimization of
all those who don't fit the enforced gender roles in
society.
And as the military brass boast of their stepped-up witch
hunts against lesbian, gay, bi and trans service people, how
can any aware person argue that the Pentagon killing machine
cares about "liberating" any oppressed peoples?
Thirty years ago the brave combatants at Stonewall made
history when they fought back together against the cops.
And today, when people who face different oppressions stand
together to fight back against their common enemy, the spirit
of Stonewall burns bright.
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
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