Vasquez

Jocelyn Vasquez

Professor Jennifer

English 115

October 21, 2018

The Stonewall Riots: The Start of Several Queer Staples

Most everyone is familiar with the Darwin’s idea of natural selection; if a species does

not evolve to survive its environment, said species will cease to exist. Sometimes, certain

communities are put under the test of natural selection and are forced to either react to their

environment, or die out. One example of this is the LGBTQIA community in New York in the

1960’s-70’s. It was very dangerous to be an open member of the queer community in America at

this period in time. The LGBTQIA community of the 1960’s-70’s was greatly shaped by New

York, as with oppression coming from the police, they formed their loud and proud identity and

the reason why this identity had to be formed is because if they did not speak up and rebel, the

community would have been silenced.

The United States’ attitude towards queer people in the 1960’s was not a welcoming one,

in every state except Illinois, it was illegal to be gay and gender nonconforming. In a video of her

interview with “ONDA ROSSA” radio station, Sylvia Rivera, a trans women who was on the

forefront of the Gay Liberation movement of the 1960’s, discusses how queer people were

treated by police at that time, “they treated us like fleas....if you said anything they would either

arrest you or hit you”. Police would constantly raid gay bars to arrest and abuse the patrons if

they were gay and/or gender nonconforming. After such abuse, the community had started to

become silent so that they could be safe. According to Sylvia Rivera, in the same interview with

“ONDA ROSSA” she stated, “we had learned through the years that it was best to keep our
 Vasquez

mouths shut” This area, especially with such rough police forced the LGBTQIA community into

silence, but eventually the LGBTQIA community had enough and thusly, the loud and proud

identity of the LGBTQIA community had started to form.

After years of silence the LGBTQIA community would not be silenced any longer. On

June 28, 1969 a riot broke out at the Stonewall Inn Bar after there was a police raid and the

patrons of the bar started to fight back, after years of abuse the queer community had decided to

finally fight their surroundings. According to the video “How the Stonewall Riots Sparked a

Movement” by the History YouTube Channel “the riots sparked the formation of the gay

liberation front” As officers tried to arrest patrons, the people at the bar started to fight back and

a large riot broke out. As the days progressed, more and more supporters and members of the

LGBTQIA community started to join the riot until the area was overflowing with those fighting

for change. The surroundings of the LGBTQIA community forced them to speak up, they did not

want to be silenced and abused any longer. Years after struggle, in 2016 President Obama named

the Stonewall Inn a national monument and according to the video “through the Stonewall riots,

the gay movement gained mainstream visibility and a momentum that continues to this day”

Because of this riot which was a response to the brutality around them, the LGBTQIA

community has a grand amount of visibility. The LGBTQIA no longer has to be worried about

mass abuse and discrimination and great strides have been made since the days of the Stonewall

riots, such as same sex marriage being legalized in all United States. Although, visibility was not

the only thing gained from the riots.

Gay pride marches are a staple of the LGBTQIA community. The Stonewall Riots were a

reaction to the LGBTQIA community being oppressed and one thing that came from this

reaction was gay pride parades. According to Alexa Lisitza in the Teen Vogue article “From
 Vasquez

Protests to Parties: The History Behind the Pride Parade.”, “on the anniversary of the Stonewall

raid, the first gay pride event was held in honor of those who rioted and the Christopher Street

Liberation Day March, as Pride was then called, was born” so being oppressed in there 1960’s

helped form a staple in the gay community. Not only that but Lisitza states, “In 1970, during the

weekend of the Christopher Street march, Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco also held

Pride events to honor the struggle those in the gay community faced, which were brought to

attention by the Stonewall Inn riot” The queer community decided the age of silence was over

and started to adapt a loud and proud personality. Not only that but through this time of

oppression another crucial identity trait formed, a sense of unity within the LGBTQIA

community. The Stonewall riots really were a crucial point in LGBTQIA history that helped

form the identity of the community and provided a staple within the community thusly showing

how important the surroundings were to forming these important events.

Overall, the LGBTQIA community owes the start of one of the most important

events in their history due to the surroundings of the LGBTQIA community within New York.

Were is not for the horrible events that the members of that community went through many

staples of the LGBTQIA community, like the gay pride celebrations, would not have existed

today. Were it not for the abuse that the LGBTQIA suffered, the discrimination, the verbal

abuse, the watching of close friends being physically abused and murdered all because they were

not straight or did not gender conform, there would have never been the revolution. There would

have not been a point where pioneers like Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson say that they

have had enough and try to make change for the LGBTQIA community. And thanks to these

events and these horrible surroundings there is now a mainstream conversation towards the
 Vasquez

treatment of the LGBTQIA community and there is even a national monument honoring their

struggles.
 Vasquez

Works Cited

Channel, History, director. How the Stonewall Riots Sparked a Movement | History. YouTube,

YouTube, 1 June 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9wdMJmuBlA.

GAJAMENTEFORUM, director. SYLVIA RIVERA A RADIO 'ONDA ROSSA'. YouTube,

YouTube, 1 Aug. 2013, www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1cthgHWDJU.

Lisitza, Alexa. “From Protests to Parties: The History Behind the Pride Parade.” Teen Vogue,

Teen Vogue, 21 June 2017, www.teenvogue.com/story/history-of-pride-parades-in-the-us.