At three am on June 28th, 1969, Brooklyn police did a routine raid on the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, New York City. They expected the gay and transgender people inside to come quietly, but they did the opposite. This event forever changed the way the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ+) community fought for rights. The 1969 Stonewall riots prompted the LGBTQ+ community to explore the idea of gay defiance against society, made encounters between the straight and gay communities more prevalent, and opened up the floodgates for the exchange and discussion of ideas on sexuality in the United States. During the 1950s and 60s, society looked down on homosexuality. The general public opinion was that homosexuality was something to be ashamed of and threatening to wholesome family values. In a 1967 CBS News documentary called “The Homosexuals”, anchor Mike Wallace said, “In preparing this broadcast, CBS News commissioned a survey by the Opinion Research Corporation into public attitudes about homosexuality. We discovered that Americans consider homosexuality more harmful to society than adultery, abortion, or prostitution.” …show more content…
Castration, electroshock therapy, and hypnosis were popular medical treatments as “cures” for homosexuality. In an interview with a Stonewall riot veteran, Roy McCarthy, he said, “We were tired of gay people getting locked up in psychiatric hospitals and getting tortured! We had our own Auschwitzes and Dachaus! And we were just pissed off about all of that! And it had to end!” The widespread perception of homosexuality as a disease in the 1950s and 60s contributed largely to the all-consuming rage the gay community finally expressed to the New York City police that fateful
On October 7, 1998, Matthew Shepard, a gay 21-year-old college student, was abducted by two men who took him to a remote area, tied him to a fence, severely beat him with the butt of a pistol, and left him to die in the cold of the night (Matthew Shepard Foundation, “About Us”). Matthew Shepard’s death became a symbol for the deadly effect that prejudice can have on an innocent, young adult, and it gave people a chance to begin to understand how to accept people of different sexual orientations. However, 18 years later, America still hasn’t learned from Matthew Shepard’s death, and that is most evident in the Orlando night club shooting. June 12, 2016 brought upon a new era of anti-gay hate crimes when 49 people were killed and 53 were injured
The Laramie Project by Moises Kaufman depicts the story of Matthew Shepard's murder, and the struggle to overcome hatred versus homosexuals in a town where it was common practice, encouraged, and then eventually overcame. The people of Laramie had forever lived by the simple rule of “live and let live.” While common and seeming harmless, this simple rule led
The U.S. government was scared that homosexuals were working with communist countries. As a result, thousands of homosexuals lost their jobs. “President Dwight D. Eisenhower that year declared homosexuals a threat
In 1969, New York City’s Greenwich Village had finally had enough. The LGBT community within the city were facing violent abuse and neglect from the police. On the morning of June 28th, a group of police men raided the Stonewall Inn. Stonewall Inn was one of few of gay bars, which police frequently raided. At the time, being LGBT would have been a crime that could result in an arrest.
“A group of people decided they’d had enough. They took a stand and in doing so began the New York Gay Activist movement. Which eventually spread to other parts of the country…. I very much doubt they know the impact of their decision to stand firm that day in 1969, but it’s because of those people that gay rights exist in this country today,” Lynley Wayne, LGBT Writer. Everyday people are trying to stand up for themselves.
Shortly after midnight on June 28, 1969, police raided Stonewall Inn, a gay club in New York City. The patrons of the bar fought back against the police, leading to violent clashes and destruction of property in the surrounding area. This drastic act drew attention to the mistreatment and discrimination faced by the LGBTQ+ community, who was fed up with the longstanding harassment by the law enforcement. Even though the initial conflict began in the Stonewall Inn, neighbors joined the protests after witnessing the fights against the police, which heavily involved property destruction. In these protests, the destruction of property was an act that demonstrated the deep grievances of the LGBTQ+ community who felt anger and frustration towards their constant mistreatment.
By creating a sense of possibility and solidarity within the LGBTQ community, the Compton Cafeteria riots helped to lay the groundwork for a much larger and more sustained movement for LGBTQ rights and
Gay people were also ostracized by the government and in the workplace. From 1947 to 1950, over 6,500 people were denied from government jobs or fired for being gay or on suspicion of being gay. At the time, there were no federal or state ordinances protecting gays from workplace discrimination, and homosexual acts were considered a felony and a disgrace, so gay people kept their sexuality a closely guarded secret. For example, in New York City, raids on widely known gay bars like the Stonewall were common. The practice for these raids was that the police would check identification, and if a person was not dressed as their sex, or did not have at least three assigned-sex items on, they would be arrested.
When asking 10 different psychiatrists who were members of the APA during the time of redefinition about what percentage of the APA believed homosexuality was a pathology, almost all responded over ninety percent. John Fryer, shockingly answered “...99. Even the ones of us who were gay.” A deeply saddening statement, Fryer reveals the sinister depths of homophobia in the APA. For fear of their livelihoods, many gay psychiatrists lived a dual world, only to converge during the GAYPA meetings.
proclaims itself a haven for all allies”. The treatment of homosexuals during the AIDS crisis exemplifies the mistreatment of marginalized groups of individuals in the Unites States. There was a clear lack of funding for research, and the outreach of local communities was not adequate. Furthermore, there was a scarcity of drugs, as Kushner reveals by the fact that only Roy Cohn was able to pull strings to get the life saving medicine. Despite the hardships endured by the gay community, the scrutiny that they often faced allowed them to adapt their abilities to handle their unfortunate place in American society.
There was not many places Lgbtq* felt safe but the Stonewall located in Greenwich Village, New York was a safe place. Stonewall was a Lgbtq* tavern which like many clubs or taverns as such were raided by police. Peace rallies played a role around this time for various issues but enough was enough for people of the LGBTQ* at the Stonewall, especially when the police came to raid the Stonewall kicking many people out into the streets. A riot broke out due to the tension with the police. There was People in the crowd started shouting “Gay
THE STONEWALL RIOTS The Stonewall riots are widely believed to be the single most important event leading to the gay liberation movement and the modern fight for LGBT rights in the United States. Considered by some to be the "Rosa Parks" moment of the gay rights movement in America, the riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations against a police raid of the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, New York, in the early hours of June 28th, 1969. This single event has left a resounding impact on the fight for LGBT rights that can still be seen today. Throughout the 50s and 60s in the United States, the FBI along with local police departments kept close watch on what they believed to be "homosexual activity".
First, rather than simply accepting the predominant view of homosexuality as pathology, she posed the question of whether homosexuals and heterosexuals differed in their psychological adjustment. Second, rather than studying psychiatric patients, she recruited a sample of homosexual men who were functioning normally in society. Third, she employed a procedure that asked experts to rate the adjustment of men without prior knowledge of their sexual orientation. This method addressed an important source of bias that had vitiated so many previous studies of
Sexuality rights is often overlooked in history especially in the 20th century as not many historians talked about the inequality for gays and lesbians therefore it is hard to say this form of inequality shaped the United States. Gay liberation can be linked to feminism as in the 1960s homosexuals also stood up for their own rights in the fight against inequality. Throughout the 20th century gay and lesbians were described as “sinful or mentally disordered”, as it was illegal in most states, seen as irregular and against the traditional American values of heterosexual marriages. McCarthyism pronounced gays to be a source of “national weakness” a focal point that caused controversy around gays and lesbians. Carl Wittman declared a Gay Manifesto stating how San Francisco is a “refugee camp for homosexuals” a place where people had fled from “blackmailing cops, from families who disowned or “tolerated” us”, it shows the inequality as gay people were treated horribly but of fear of abuse has to pretend “everything was OK”.
it’s much more than that. It was a survival technique; a form of camouflage. Similarly, as discussed in Before Stonewall, gay men had to conform to heteronormative values and norms as well. Masculinity had to be proven.