Stonewall Uprising

53 years ago a pivotal moment occurred which changed everything for a marginalized people that were seldom spoken of in public settings and if so were addressed with a tone of contempt, the LGTBQA body of people. I previously have posted on the case of Marsha P Johnson that was the vanguard of the movement and said to have been the activist to begin the riot. That riot was in 1969 and it was called the Stonewall riot. What led up to the week long incident from June 28 1969 to July 3 1969 was the repression of the people including being subjected to corrective therapy, likening LGTBQ people to “sexual deviants”, the sideshow aspect where people would gawk at them for entertainment purposes, police brutality, propaganda films, etc. It was illegal in those days the terminology was “Homosexual” to be LGTBQA if and when arrested the persons name, address, everything would be splattered in the media. It was a criminal offense that would ruin the life of the person that was charged with “Lewd and immoral acts.” In those days it was the LGTBQA’s back of the bus or the Lakota’s Wounded Knee incident of 1975. The documentary Stonewall Uprising explores the ordeal.

Courtesy- First Run Features

It must be said this taboo and aversion was what caused the spread of HIV/AIDS in the 1970’s into the 1980’s it wasn’t LGTBQA that caused the outbreak it was the suppression that caused it because they had to be covert practically. As one Gentleman put it in the documentary is “We could be and were hunted.” It also speaks on how the mafia were involved in the gay bar panorama.