The Evolution of Human Sexuality

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evolution_of_Human_Sexuality 

 

The Evolution of Human Sexuality

Cover of the first edition
Author	Donald Symons
Country	United States
Language	English
Subject	Human sexuality
Publisher	Oxford University Press
Publication date	1979
Media type	Print (Hardcover and Paperback)
Pages	358 (first edition)
ISBN	978-0195029079

The Evolution of Human Sexuality is a 1979 book about human sexuality by the anthropologist Donald Symons, in which the author discusses topics such as human sexual anatomy, ovulation, orgasm, homosexuality, sexual promiscuity, and rape, attempting to show how evolutionary concepts can be applied to humans. Symons argues that the female orgasm is not an adaptive trait and that women have the capacity for it only because orgasm is adaptive for men, and that differences between the sexual behavior of male and female homosexuals help to show underlying differences between male and female sexuality. In his view, homosexual men tend to be sexually promiscuous because of the tendency of men in general to desire sex with a large number of partners, a tendency that in heterosexual men is usually restrained by women's typical lack of interest in promiscuous sex. Symons also argues that rape can be explained in evolutionary terms and feminist claims that it is not sexually motivated are incorrect.

The book received several positive reviews, as well as some criticism: it was described as the most important work on human sociobiology to date, but also dismissed as an impoverished work. It has been seen as a classic work on human sexual evolution and used as a textbook, though critics have questioned Symons's explanation of the female orgasm and his suggestion that eliminating rape "might well entail a cure worse than the disease". The work influenced the biologist Randy Thornhill and the anthropologist Craig T. Palmer's A Natural History of Rape (2000). Symons's arguments about homosexuality have received both criticism and support from commentators, and he has been both accused of supporting genetic determinism and sexism, and defended against the charge.

Summary

Symons argues that women and men have different sexual natures, apparent in their typical "sexual behaviors, attitudes, and feelings", but partially concealed by moral injunctions and the compromises inherent in relations between the sexes. He attributes these differences to human evolutionary history, writing that during its hunting and gathering phase, the sexual desires and dispositions that were adaptive for men obstructed reproduction for women, while those that were adaptive for women obstructed reproduction for men. He writes that his discussion of sex differences in sexuality is not intended to affect social policy. He discusses evolutionary concepts and the difficulties involved in applying them to humans, the capacity for orgasm, the loss of human estrus, sexual selection and its components intrasexual competition and sexual choice, the desire for sexual variety, and the development of human ovulation. He argues that among all peoples, sex is typically understood to be a service that females render to males.

In the introduction, Symons argues that modern understandings of "natural selection" and "fitness" are value-free, the latter term measuring reproductive success rather than referring to human value judgments; that it is necessary to distinguish between proximate and ultimate explanations of animal behavior, the former being concerned with how animals come to develop behavior patterns, and the latter with why they develop these patterns; that while a feature of structure or behavior may benefit an animal, only features that result from natural selection should be considered functions; that the persistence of the nature–nurture controversy is partly the result of failing to distinguish between proximate and ultimate causation; that learning abilities are more often concerned with specific problems than they are the expression of general capacities; and that the secondary sex differences that exist in animals of most species are the consequences the different reproductive behaviors of males and females.

According to Symons, while orgasm in the human female has been proposed to be an adaptation resulting from selective forces, the available evidence, which shows that the female orgasm is far from being a universal result of heterosexual intercourse and that its frequency varies greatly between cultures and between individuals, does not support that conclusion. Symons suggested that the female orgasm may be possible for female mammals because it is adaptive for males. He notes that in most mammalian species the only known function of the clitoris is to generate sensation during copulation, but saw no evidence that "the female genitals of any mammalian species have been designed by natural selection for efficiency in orgasm production." He criticizes Elizabeth Sherfey's view that the female orgasm is an adaptation, writing that her arguments are not supported by ethnographic or biological evidence. Symons proposes that male human ancestors lost the ability to detect ovulation in females by smell because females gained a reproductive advantage by concealing ovulation, and that estrus ceased to exist in humans at the same time. Observing that estrous female chimpanzees are more successful than nonestrous females in obtaining meat from males, Symons suggests that when hunting became a dominant male economic activity during human evolution, the benefits to females of receiving meat may have outweighed the costs to them of constant sexual activity, leading to women making sexual overtures to men in order to obtain meat.

In his discussion of "the desire for sexual variety", Symons reviews literature on the "Coolidge effect", the "phenomenon of male rearousal by a new female". Discussing rape, Symons suggests that because males can "potentially sire offspring at almost no cost ... selection favors male attempts to copulate with fertile females whenever this potential can be realized." He criticizes the feminist Susan Brownmiller's argument in Against Our Will (1975) that rape is not sexually motivated, writing that she inadequately documents her thesis and that all of the reasons that she and other authors have given for concluding that rapists are not motivated by sexual desire are open to criticism. Symons writes that Brownmiller's claim that the function of rape is to keep all women in a state of fear has been "vigorously contested", and that it is also an example of a naïve form of functionalism, which is unacceptable since no process that might generate such "functions" has been shown to exist. Symons argues that socialization towards a "more humane sexuality" requires the inhibition of impulses that are part of human nature because they have proved adaptive over millions of years, and concluded that while under the right rearing conditions, "males could be produced who would want only the kinds of sexual interactions that women want" this "might well entail a cure worse than the disease." He considers the major contribution of feminist investigations of rape to be to document the perspective of its victims, showing, for example, that they do not want to be raped.

Symons considers two different kinds of evidence especially important in supporting his claim that there are typical differences between the sexual desires and dispositions of men and women: hormone studies and the behavior of male and female homosexuals. Because homosexuals do not have to "compromise sexually with members of the opposite sex" their sex lives "should provide dramatic insight into male sexuality and female sexuality in their undiluted states." According to Symons, fundamental differences between men and women are apparent from the fact that, while there is a substantial industry producing pornography for male homosexuals, no pornography is produced for lesbians, and that lesbians, as compared to male homosexuals, have much greater interest in forming stable and monogamous relationships and having sex with loving partners.

He argues that the similarities between heterosexual and lesbian relationships, and the differences between both and the relations of male homosexuals, show that "the sexual proclivities of homosexual males are very rarely manifested in behavior." He proposes that heterosexual men would be as promiscuous as homosexual men tend to be if most women were interested in engaging in promiscuous heterosexual sex, and that it is women's lack of interest that prevents this. He considers, but rejects, alternative explanations for the differences between male homosexual and lesbian behavior, such as the effects of socialization, finding them unsupported. He concludes that while the "existence of large numbers of exclusive homosexuals in contemporary Western societies attests to the importance of social experience in determining the objects that humans sexually desire", the fact that male homosexual behavior in some ways resembles an exaggerated version of male heterosexual behavior, and lesbian behavior in some ways resembles an exaggerated version of female heterosexual behavior, indicates that other aspects of human sexuality are not affected by social influences to the same extent.

Background and publication history

According to Symons, the ideas that he developed in The Evolution of Human Sexuality were partly inspired by a conversation he had with the ethologist Richard Dawkins in 1968. Symons, who had concluded that "men tend to want a variety of sexual partners and women tend not to because this desire always was adaptive for ancestral males and never was adaptive for ancestral females", found that Dawkins had independently reached the same conclusion. Symons presented an early draft of the book during a 1974 seminar on primate and human sexuality he co-taught with the anthropologist Donald Brown. Symons argued in the draft that there are universal human sex differences.

Brown assisted Symons in writing the book. The book was first published in hardcover by Oxford University Press in 1979. A paperback edition followed in 1981.

Reception

Mainstream media

The Evolution of Human Sexuality received a negative review from the anthropologist Clifford Geertz in The New York Review of Books. Subsequent discussions include those by the anthropologist Craig Stanford in American Scientist and the evolutionary psychologist Nigel Barber in Psychology Today.

Geertz wrote that "virtually none" of Symons's claims are based on research Symons conducted himself, and that Symons "made no direct inquiries into human sexuality", instead basing himself on anthropological reports and other material, resulting in a book that is "a pastiche more than a study". He accused Symons of supporting his views through selective use of evidence, such as an "extremely brief and fragmentary" review of the effects of hormones on human sexuality. He considered Symons's characterizations of male and female homosexuals to be on the level of national or ethnic stereotypes, and found it questionable whether Symons's observations support his claims about differences between male and female sexuality. He questioned whether Symons was correct to believe it possible to determine what natures and dispositions men and women have prior to the influence of human culture, and criticized Symons for viewing human sexuality as a biological fact with cultural implications rather than a cultural activity sustaining a biological process. He disagreed with the favorable views of The Evolution of Human Sexuality expressed by the biologists E. O. Wilson and George C. Williams, and the then president of the American Anthropological Association, calling the work impoverished. He wrote that if the book was the most important work on human sociobiology to date, this was unfortunate.

Stanford described the book as "an early think piece rather than a thorough review of actual behavior." He noted that the biologist Randy Thornhill and the anthropologist Craig T. Palmer cited The Evolution of Human Sexuality extensively in their work A Natural History of Rape (2000), but criticized them for relying on Symons as an "authority on human mating". Barber, writing in 2011, described The Evolution of Human Sexuality as the "classic rejoinder" to Brownmiller's argument that rape is not sexually motivated, and credited Symons with a "resounding defeat of Brownmiller". However, he wrote that since it was published, date rape has emerged as the most common type of sexual assault and that "College men do not fit the profile of rapists drawn by Symons because they have high social status rather than being underprivileged."

Scientific and academic journals, 1979–2000

The Evolution of Human Sexuality received positive reviews from the anthropologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy in The Quarterly Review of Biology and the psychologists Martin Daly and Margo Wilson in The Sciences, a mixed review from Elmer S. Miller in Social Science Quarterly, and a negative review from the anthropologist Judith Shapiro in Science. Subsequent discussions include those by Lisa Sanchez in Gender Issues.

Hrdy credited Symons with being one of the first to apply evolutionary theory to human sexuality and described The Evolution of Human Sexuality as "an insightful, theoretically sophisticated, and delightfully literate examination of the sexual emotions of men and women" and "the best available study of human sexual emotions." She predicted that many social scientists, but few zoologists, would disagree with Symons's conclusion that there are innate psychological differences between men and women. She found Symons's review of biological literature on the "Coolidge effect", and the sociobiological literature on adultery, valuable, and although she found his "extrapolating from the Coolidge effect to human philandering" open to question, considered his discussion of the relationship between nature and culture more sophisticated than that of most sociobiologists. She credited Symons with usefully drawing on both traditional anthropology and sociobiology. She found his treatment of female sexuality both more original and more controversial than his treatment of male sexuality, and argued against his view that many aspects of female sexuality, such as the female orgasm, were only accidental by-products of evolution.

Daly and Wilson wrote that Symons brought an "even-handed, critical intelligence" to the discussion of the evolutionary basis of sex differences, and that he was willing to criticize the writings of sociobiologists where appropriate. However, they found Symons's discussion of the evolution of concealment of ovulation in humans less useful than that of several other authors, including Hrdy, and concluded that Symons was not fully successful in establishing criteria to determine whether a given feature of an animal is an adaptation. They observed that though "seemingly bizarre", Symons's argument that the sexual behavior of homosexuals helps to test hypotheses about sex differences in sexuality is logical.

Miller described The Evolution of Human Sexuality as well-written and fascinating, but argued that Symons, with his focus on reproductive success, did not fully answer questions about "the relevance of nonhuman animal studies for an understanding of human social life." He pointed to infanticide as an example of a phenomenon that was difficult to explain in terms of reproductive success arguments, especially since "killing is generally performed by the mother." He also argued that "the epistemological foundation of research that assigns culture the status of epiphenomena" was open to debate, and that Symons limited the value of his contributions by ignoring the "question of cultural significance".

Shapiro considered Symons's thesis about human sexuality unprovable, and argued that by outlining the relevant theoretical and methodological issues carefully and clearly he showed the difficulties to be greater than he realized. She maintained that his conclusions were only acceptable if one already agreed with sociobiology. She wrote that he attached too much importance to the idea that reproductive strategies explain relations between men and women, thereby connecting human sexuality too closely to reproduction, and accused him of showing no awareness of "the many meanings that sex can take on in different cultural settings." She criticized his views on subjects such as the motivations for rape, marriage, and the female orgasm, and also faulted the quality of his "cross-cultural data on erotic activity." She described his argument that "the innate sexual tendencies of men and women are mostly truly expressed in the behavior of homosexuals" as "ingenious". She also maintained that his work was unlikely to appeal to social scientists.

Sanchez noted that Symons's view that rape is not an adaptation has been questioned by Thornhill and Palmer. However, she considered Symons correct to caution that the available data are insufficient to support the conclusion that rape is an adaptation.

Scientific and academic journals, 2001–present

The socialist feminist Lynne Segal argued in Psychology, Evolution & Gender that Symons mistakenly believed that women, by being "continuously copulable", cause men to desire to engage in promiscuous sexual relations with them. She saw Symons's endorsement of the "genetic determinism" of the biologist Randy Thornhill and the anthropologist Craig T. Palmer's A Natural History of Rape (2000) as following from the views he expressed in The Evolution of Human Sexuality.

Palmer and Thornhill noted in the Journal of Sex Research that while Symons stated that did not "believe that available data are even close to sufficient to warrant the conclusion" that rape is a "facultative adaptation in the human male" and therefore concluded instead that rape is "a by-product of various different sexual adaptations in men and women", he failed to specify exactly how the available data were insufficient to support the conclusion that rape is a facultative adaptation or what kind of data might potentially demonstrate that rape is a facultative adaptation. They added that given Symons's failure to explain the shortcomings of the available data or explain how it could be improved upon, it was understandable that the question of whether rape is an adaptation was more thoroughly investigated by other researchers, including Thornhill himself.

Jocelyn Bosley described The Evolution of Human Sexuality as an influential work in Signs. However, she criticized Symons for accepting at face value the idea that men are "more motivated than women to seek sex." Bosley wrote that Symons argued that female orgasm is a byproduct of the existence of the male orgasm through an "infamous and widely cited" comparison of the female orgasm to male nipples. She questioned the idea that Symons's willingness to separate "female orgasm from female reproductive fitness" has feminist implications, writing that while Symons "lent scientific support to some feminists' claims for a primordial similarity between male and female sexuality", other feminists found his account of female orgasm "socially and politically regrettable". She concluded that Symons "thoroughly undercut the position of feminists who maintained that true sexual equality would be achieved only when peculiarly female sexual experiences were recognized and galvanized as the basis for a new, egalitarian sexuality."

David Puts, Khytam Dawood, and Lisa Welling argued in the Archives of Sexual Behavior that while Symons's proposal that the human female orgasm is a non-functional byproduct of orgasm in men is plausible, it is a hypothesis that "currently lacks empirical support", that there is some counter evidence, and that the issue remains unresolved.

Dean Lee argued in Biology and Philosophy that Symons's account of the female orgasm has been misinterpreted in the scholarly literature. According to Lee, while Symons's case that the female orgasm is not an adaptation attracted controversy, little attention was given to the alternative explanation of the female orgasm Symons provided. He described this alternative explanation as "obscure, complicated, and frankly speculative". He maintained that Symons did not, as has been assumed, offer the same explanation of the female orgasm as that later put forward by the evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould, according to which the female orgasm is possible because of the clitoris, which is a byproduct of the embryological connection with the male penis. He identified Symons's alternative argument as being contained in the sentence in which Symons wrote that, "The female orgasm may be a byproduct of mammalian bisexual potential: orgasm may be possible for female mammals because it is adaptive for males." He interpreted Symons as maintaining that orgasm is a typically male trait based on a mechanism in the brain that exists in individuals of both sexes: a woman who experiences an orgasm during heterosexual intercourse is exhibiting bisexual behavior because her mating response to a male is female behavior and her orgasm is a male behavior. He questioned whether Symons actually intended to make an analogy between the existence of the female orgasm and that of the male nipple, writing that Symons's comments on the issue had been taken out of context.

Other evaluations, 1979–1992

Brian Easlea argued against Symons that desire for anonymous sex is actually typical only of sexist men and is not characteristic of men in general. He rejected Symons's view that socializing men to "want only the kinds of sexual interactions that women want...might well entail a cure worse than the disease". The feminist Susan Griffin considered Symons's view that the female orgasm is only a byproduct of selection for the male orgasm an example of the ideology of the "pornographic mind", which conceives of female sexuality as "an empty space which craves male presence, and which cannot exist without the male". Hrdy argued that for Symons, "women have sexual feelings for much the same reason that men have nipples: nature makes the two sexes as variations on the same basic model", a view of female sexuality she considered reminiscent of Aristotle and 19th century Victorianism.

The biologists Richard Lewontin and Steven Rose, writing with the psychologist Leon Kamin, observed that, like some other sociobiologists, Symons maintains that "the manifest trait is not itself coded by genes, but that a potential is coded and the trait only arises when the appropriate environmental cue is given." In their view, "Despite its superficial appearance of dependence on environment, this model is completely genetically determined, independent of the environment." They concluded that Symons's arguments provide examples "of how sociobiological theory can explain anything, no matter how contradictory, by a little mental gymnastics". The biologist Anne Fausto-Sterling observed that while Symons believes that rape should be eliminated, he also states that the rearing conditions needed to eliminate rape "might well entail a cure worse than the disease." She criticized his position. Daniel Rancour-Laferriere described The Evolution of Human Sexuality as an "important treatise". However, he argued that the evidence Symons cites about animal behavior actually suggests that the female orgasm is adaptive.

The sociologist Jeffrey Weeks criticized Symons's view that differences between male and female sexual attitudes have a biological basis, arguing that it was not supported by Symons's evidence. The gay rights activist Dennis Altman argued that Symons wrongly maintained that gay men, due to their nature as men, are incapable of monogamy. The philosopher Michael Ruse concluded that while Symons's explanation of male homosexual promiscuity could be correct, it depends on controversial and disputable claims. The ethologist Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt questioned Symons's argument that the absence of visible female estrus developed so that women could "offer themselves to men" for rewards of food. He noted that prey is shared in chimpanzees without sexual rewards. He rejected Symons's argument that the infrequency of the female orgasm shows that it has no function. The ecologist Jared Diamond called The Evolution of Human Sexuality "outstanding". The economist Richard Posner called the work the "best single book on the sociobiology of sex". The anthropologist Helen Fisher criticized Symons's view that "homosexual behavior illustrates essential truths about male and female sexual natures". The psychologists Steven Pinker and Paul Bloom wrote that Symons's observation that "tribal chiefs are often both gifted orators and highly polygynous" helps to show "how linguistic skills could make a Darwinian difference."

Other evaluations, 1993–2004

The journalist Matt Ridley argued that Symons's ideas about the evolution of gender differences had revolutionary implications, since "the overwhelming majority of the research that social scientists had done on human sexuality was infused with the assumption that there are no mental differences" between the sexes. He endorsed Symons's explanation of male homosexual promiscuity. The psychologist David Buss called The Evolution of Human Sexuality "the most important treatise on the evolution of human sexuality in the twentieth century" and a "classic treatise".

The journalist Robert Wright called the book "the first comprehensive anthropological survey of human sexual behavior from the new Darwinian perspective". He credited Symons with showing that the tendency for men to be more interested than women in having sex with multiple sexual partners holds good across many cultures and is not restricted to western society. The philosopher Maxine Sheets-Johnstone observed that while The Evolution of Human Sexuality is "used as a textbook and is considered a major formulation of human sexuality", she sees as the work "a paradigm of the prevailing Western biological view" of female sexuality, a view she considers "essentially male". The critic Joseph Carroll described the book as a "standard work" on its subject. However, he criticized Symons's arguments about homosexuality. The sociologist Tim Megarry dismissed The Evolution of Human Sexuality as, "a projection of American dating culture onto prehistory". The anthropologist Meredith Small argued that the work of sex researchers Masters and Johnson, which shows that the female clitoris is made of the same tissue as the penis and responds sexually in a similar manner, suggests that the clitoris results from an embryonic connection with the male penis and supports Symons's view that it is not an adaptation.

Williams called The Evolution of Human Sexuality one of the classic works on "the biology of human sexual attitudes", alongside the work of Hrdy. Alan F. Dixson described Symons's explanation of male homosexual promiscuity as "interesting". The biologist Paul R. Ehrlich described The Evolution of Human Sexuality as a "classic but controversial treatise on human sexual evolution". He identified Symons's study of the development of human ovulation as a landmark. Thornhill and Palmer identified Symons as the first author to propose that rape is by-product of evolutionary adaptations. They observed that Symons has falsely been accused of basing his arguments on the assumption that behavior is genetically determined, even though he explicitly rejects that assumption and criticizes it at length. They endorsed his explanation of male homosexual promiscuity, and his arguments against the idea that rape is not sexually motivated.

Gould commented that the argument that the clitoris is not adaptive, put forward by Symons and subsequently by Gould himself, has been widely misunderstood as a denial of the adaptive value of the female orgasm in general, or even as a claim that female orgasms lack significance. The anthropologist Melvin Konner called The Evolution of Human Sexuality "the classic introduction to the evolutionary dimensions" of sex. Pinker called The Evolution of Human Sexuality "groundbreaking". He criticized what he considered personal abuse of Symons by Lewontin et al. in their discussion of the book.

Other evaluations, 2005–present

Buss called The Evolution of Human Sexuality the first "watershed in the study of human mating strategies" to follow evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers' 1972 paper "Parental Investment and Sexual Selection" and a "trenchant classic". He credited Symons with being "the first to articulate the theoretical foundations of a fully adaptationist view of male and female mating minds" and "the first social scientist to take the writings of George C. Williams ... to heart, applying rigorous standards for invoking the critical but challenging concept adaptation." He described The Evolution of Human Sexuality as "the first major treatise on evolutionary psychology proper, highlighting the centrality of psychological mechanisms as adaptations and using human sexuality as a detailed vehicle for this more general argument."

Elizabeth Lloyd concluded that Symons proposes "the best available explanation for the evolution of the female orgasm", stating that while Symons's conclusions are not beyond dispute, and have been criticized on a number of different grounds, they are consistent with existing evidence, and help to explain "otherwise mysterious findings." Thornhill and Steven W. Gangestad described The Evolution of Human Sexuality as "a landmark in the study of human sexuality" and "the first serious effort to investigate and inquire into the nature of human sexuality". They added that many of Symons's ideas have received support, including his view that women's sexuality includes "sexual adaptation that functions to gain access to nongenetic material benefits from males through its expression when women are not fertile within their menstrual cycles."

The anthropologists Anne Bolin and Patricia Whelehan identified as Symons one of two major participants in the debate over the reproductive role of the female orgasm, the other being Sherfey. They wrote that Symons's view of female sexuality "reflects western concepts of the passive female and overlooks the evidence of actual female sexual functioning, such as the capacity for multiple orgasms in women." They considered the female orgasm more likely to be "an extension of the pleasurable sensations associated with coitus in primate females generally" than a by-product of the male orgasm, as proposed by Symons. They observed that while Lloyd endorsed Symons's view, her work has been "severely criticized" by the psychologist David P. Barash, and the relationship between female orgasm and reproduction remains a topic of ongoing debate. Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá called The Evolution of Human Sexuality a "classic". However, they also accused Symons of having a "bleak" vision of human sexuality. The anthropologist Peter B. Gray and Justin R. Garcia maintained that demographic data supports an evolutionary account of human mating psychology similar to that proposed by Symons.

Stonewall riots

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_riots 

 

Stonewall riots
Part of events leading to the Gay liberation movement
The only known photograph taken during the first night of riots, by freelance photographer Joseph Ambrosini, shows gay youth scuffling with police.
Date	June 28 – July 3, 1969
Location	Stonewall Inn 40.7338°N 74.0021°WCoordinates: 40.7338°N 74.0021°W
Goals	Gay liberation and LGBT rights in the United States
Methods	Rioting, street protests
Parties to the civil conflict
New York Police Department Tactical Patrol Force Fourth, fifth, sixth and ninth Precincts Stonewall Inn patrons
Number
Day 1: 10 NYPD officers (inside the Inn) Day 2: Multiple NYPD precincts Day 1: 500–600 supporters outside Day 2: ~1,000 supporters inside and outside

The Stonewall riots (also known as the Stonewall uprising, Stonewall rebellion, or simply Stonewall) were a series of spontaneous protests by members of the gay community in response to a police raid that began in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. Patrons of the Stonewall, other Village lesbian and gay bars, and neighborhood street people fought back when the police became violent. The riots are widely considered the watershed event that transformed the gay liberation movement and the twentieth-century fight for LGBT rights in the United States.

As was common for American gay bars at the time, the Stonewall Inn was owned by the Mafia. While police raids on gay bars were routine in the 1960s, officers quickly lost control of the situation at the Stonewall Inn on June 28, 1969. Tensions between New York City Police and gay residents of Greenwich Village erupted into more protests the next evening and again several nights later. Within weeks, Village residents organized into activist groups demanding the right to live openly regarding their sexual orientation, and without fear of being arrested. The new activist organizations concentrated on confrontational tactics, and within months three newspapers were established to promote rights for gay men and lesbians.

A year after the uprising, to mark the anniversary on June 28, 1970, the first gay pride marches took place in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco. Within a few years, gay rights organizations were founded across the US and the world. Today, LGBT Pride events are held annually in June in honor of the Stonewall riots.

The Stonewall National Monument was established at the site in 2016. An estimated 5 million participants commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, and on June 6, 2019, New York City Police Commissioner James P. O'Neill rendered a formal apology for the actions of officers at Stonewall in 1969.

Background

Very few establishments welcomed gay people in the 1950s and 1960s; those that did were often run by organized crime groups, due to the illegal nature of gay bars at the time, and bar owners and managers were rarely gay. The homophobic legal system of the 1950s and 1960s prompted early homosexual groups in the US to prove gay people could be assimilated into society, and such early groups favored non-confrontational education for homosexuals and heterosexuals alike. However, the last years of the 1960s saw activity among many social/political movements, including the civil rights movement, the counterculture of the 1960s and the anti-Vietnam War movement. Such influences served as catalysts for the Stonewall riots.

Homosexuality in 20th-century United States

Further information: LGBT history in the United States and Lavender scare

Following the social upheaval of World War II, many people in the United States felt a fervent desire to "restore the prewar social order and hold off the forces of change", according to historian Barry Adam. Spurred by the national emphasis on anti-communism, Senator Joseph McCarthy conducted hearings searching for communists in the US government, the US Army, and other government-funded agencies and institutions, leading to a national paranoia. Anarchists, communists, and other people deemed un-American and subversive were considered security risks. Gay men and lesbians were included in this list by the US State Department on the theory that they were susceptible to blackmail. In 1950, a Senate investigation chaired by Clyde R. Hoey noted in a report, "It is generally believed that those who engage in overt acts of perversion lack the emotional stability of normal persons", and said all of the government's intelligence agencies "are in complete agreement that sex perverts in Government constitute security risks". Between 1947 and 1950, 1,700 federal job applications were denied, 4,380 people were discharged from the military, and 420 were fired from their government jobs for being suspected homosexuals.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and police departments kept lists of known homosexuals and their favored establishments and friends; the US Post Office kept track of addresses where material pertaining to homosexuality was mailed. State and local governments followed suit: bars catering to gay men and lesbians were shut down and their customers were arrested and exposed in newspapers. Cities performed "sweeps" to rid neighborhoods, parks, bars, and beaches of gay people. They outlawed the wearing of opposite gender clothes and universities expelled instructors suspected of being homosexual.

In 1952, the American Psychiatric Association listed homosexuality in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) as a mental disorder. A large-scale study of homosexuality in 1962 was used to justify inclusion of the disorder as a supposed pathological hidden fear of the opposite sex caused by traumatic parent–child relationships. This view was widely influential in the medical profession. In 1956, however, the psychologist Evelyn Hooker performed a study that compared the happiness and well-adjusted nature of self-identified homosexual men with heterosexual men and found no difference. Her study stunned the medical community and made her a hero to many gay men and lesbians, but homosexuality remained in the DSM until 1974.

Homophile activism

Main article: Homophile movement

In response to this trend, two organizations formed independently of each other to advance the cause of gay men and lesbians and provide social opportunities where they could socialize without fear of being arrested. Los Angeles area homosexuals created the Mattachine Society in 1950, in the home of communist activist Harry Hay. Their objectives were to unify homosexuals, educate them, provide leadership, and assist "sexual deviants" with legal troubles. Facing enormous opposition to their radical approach, in 1953 the Mattachine shifted their focus to assimilation and respectability. They reasoned that they would change more minds about homosexuality by proving that gay men and lesbians were normal people, no different from heterosexuals. Soon after, several women in San Francisco met in their living rooms to form the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) for lesbians. Although the eight women who created the DOB initially came together to be able to have a safe place to dance, as the DOB grew they developed similar goals to the Mattachine and urged their members to assimilate into general society.

One of the first challenges to government repression came in 1953. An organization named ONE, Inc. published a magazine called ONE. The US Postal Service refused to mail its August issue, which concerned homosexual people in heterosexual marriages, on the grounds that the material was obscene despite it being covered in brown paper wrapping. The case eventually went to the Supreme Court, which in 1958 ruled that ONE, Inc. could mail its materials through the Postal Service.

Homophile organizations—as homosexual groups self-identified in this era—grew in number and spread to the East Coast. Gradually, members of these organizations grew bolder. Frank Kameny founded the Mattachine of Washington, D.C. He had been fired from the US Army Map Service for being a homosexual and sued unsuccessfully to be reinstated. Kameny wrote that homosexuals were no different from heterosexuals, often aiming his efforts at mental health professionals, some of whom attended Mattachine and DOB meetings telling members they were abnormal.

In 1965, news on Cuban prison work camps for homosexuals inspired Mattachine New York and D.C. to organize protests at the United Nations and the White House. Similar demonstrations were then held also at other government buildings. The purpose was to protest the treatment of gay people in Cuba and US employment discrimination. These pickets shocked many gay people and upset some of the leadership of Mattachine and the DOB. At the same time, demonstrations in the civil rights movement and opposition to the Vietnam War all grew in prominence, frequency, and severity throughout the 1960s, as did their confrontations with police forces.

Earlier resistance and riots

Main article: List of LGBT actions in the United States prior to the Stonewall riots

See also: Cooper Do-nuts Riot and Compton's Cafeteria riot

On the outer fringes of the few small gay communities were people who challenged gender expectations. They were effeminate men and masculine women, or people who dressed and lived in contrast to their sex assigned at birth, either part or full-time. Contemporaneous nomenclature classified them as transvestites and they were the most visible representatives of sexual minorities. They believed the carefully crafted image portrayed by the Mattachine Society and DOB that asserted homosexuals were respectable, normal people. The Mattachine and DOB considered the trials of being arrested for wearing clothing of the opposite gender as a parallel to the struggles of homophile organizations: similar but distinctly separate.

Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people staged a small riot at the Cooper Do-nuts cafe in Los Angeles in 1959 in response to police harassment. In a larger 1966 event in San Francisco, drag queens, hustlers, and trans women were sitting in Compton's Cafeteria when the police arrived to arrest people appearing to be physically male who were dressed as women. A riot ensued, with the cafeteria patrons slinging cups, plates, and saucers and breaking the plexiglass windows in the front of the restaurant and returning several days later to smash the windows again after they were replaced. Professor Susan Stryker classifies the Compton's Cafeteria riot as an "act of anti-transgender discrimination, rather than an act of discrimination against sexual orientation" and connects the uprising to the issues of gender, race, and class that were being downplayed by homophile organizations. It marked the beginning of transgender activism in San Francisco.

Greenwich Village

Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village

The Manhattan neighborhoods of Greenwich Village and Harlem were home to sizable gay and lesbian populations after World War I, when people who had served in the military took advantage of the opportunity to settle in larger cities. The enclaves of gay men and lesbians, described by a newspaper story as "short-haired women and long-haired men", developed a distinct subculture through the following two decades. Prohibition inadvertently benefited gay establishments, as drinking alcohol was pushed underground along with other behaviors considered immoral. New York City passed laws against homosexuality in public and private businesses, but because alcohol was in high demand, speakeasies and impromptu drinking establishments were so numerous and temporary that authorities were unable to police them all. However, police raids continued, resulting in the closure of iconic establishments such as Eve's Hangout in 1926.

The social repression of the 1950s resulted in a cultural revolution in Greenwich Village. A cohort of poets, later named the Beat poets, wrote about the evils of the social organization at the time, glorifying anarchy, drugs, and hedonistic pleasures over unquestioning social compliance, consumerism, and closed-mindedness. Of them, Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs—both Greenwich Village residents—also wrote bluntly and honestly about homosexuality. Their writings attracted sympathetic liberal-minded people, as well as homosexuals looking for a community.

By the early 1960s, a campaign to rid New York City of gay bars was in full effect by order of Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr., who was concerned about the image of the city in preparation for the 1964 World's Fair. The city revoked the liquor licenses of the bars and undercover police officers worked to entrap as many homosexual men as possible. Entrapment usually consisted of an undercover officer who found a man in a bar or public park, engaged him in conversation; if the conversation headed toward the possibility that they might leave together—or the officer bought the man a drink—he was arrested for solicitation. One story in the New York Post described an arrest in a gym locker room, where the officer grabbed his crotch, moaning and a man who asked him if he was all right was arrested. Few lawyers would defend cases as undesirable as these and some of those lawyers kicked back their fees to the arresting officer.

The Mattachine Society succeeded in getting newly elected mayor John Lindsay to end the campaign of police entrapment in New York City. They had a more difficult time with the New York State Liquor Authority (SLA). While no laws prohibited serving homosexuals, courts allowed the SLA discretion in approving and revoking liquor licenses for businesses that might become "disorderly". Despite the high population of gay men and lesbians who called Greenwich Village home, very few places existed, other than bars, where they were able to congregate openly without being harassed or arrested. In 1966 the New York Mattachine held a "sip-in" at a Greenwich Village bar named Julius, which was frequented by gay men, to illustrate the discrimination homosexuals faced.

None of the bars frequented by gay men and lesbians were owned by gay people. Almost all of them were owned and controlled by organized crime, who treated the regulars poorly, watered down the liquor, and overcharged for drinks. However, they also paid off police to prevent frequent raids.

Stonewall Inn

Main article: Stonewall Inn

The Stonewall Inn, located at 51 and 53 Christopher Street, along with several other establishments in the city, was owned by the Genovese crime family. In 1966, three members of the Mafia invested $3,500 to turn the Stonewall Inn into a gay bar, after it had been a restaurant and a nightclub for heterosexuals. Once a week a police officer would collect envelopes of cash as a payoff known as a gayola, as the Stonewall Inn had no liquor license. It had no running water behind the bar—dirty glasses were run through tubs of water and immediately reused. There were no fire exits, and the toilets overran consistently. Though the bar was not used for prostitution, drug sales and other black market activities took place. It was the only bar for gay men in New York City where dancing was allowed; dancing was its main draw since its re-opening as a gay club.

Visitors to the Stonewall Inn in 1969 were greeted by a bouncer who inspected them through a peephole in the door. The legal drinking age was 18 and to avoid unwittingly letting in undercover police (who were called "Lily Law", "Alice Blue Gown", or "Betty Badge"), visitors would have to be known by the doorman, or look gay. Patrons were required to sign their names in a book to prove that the bar was a private "bottle club", but they rarely signed their real names. There were two dance floors in the Stonewall. The interior was painted black, making it very dark inside, with pulsing gel lights or black lights. If police were spotted, regular white lights were turned on, signaling that everyone should stop dancing or touching. In the rear of the bar was a smaller room frequented by "queens"; it was one of two bars where effeminate men who wore makeup and teased their hair (though dressed in men's clothing) could go. Only a few people in full drag were allowed in by the bouncers. The customers were "98 percent male" but a few lesbians sometimes came to the bar. Younger homeless adolescent males, who slept in nearby Christopher Park, would often try to get in so customers would buy them drinks. The age of the clientele ranged between the upper teens and early thirties and the racial mix was distributed among mainly white, with Black, and Hispanic patrons. Because of its mix of people, its location, and the attraction of dancing, the Stonewall Inn was known by many as "the gay bar in the city".

Police raids on gay bars were frequent, occurring on average once a month for each bar. Many bars kept extra liquor in a secret panel behind the bar, or in a car down the block, to facilitate resuming business as quickly as possible if alcohol was seized. Bar management usually knew about raids beforehand due to police tip-offs, and raids occurred early enough in the evening that business could commence after the police had finished. During a typical raid, the lights were turned on and customers were lined up and their identification cards checked. Those without identification or dressed in full drag were arrested; others were allowed to leave. Some of the men, including those in drag, used their draft cards as identification. Women were required to wear three pieces of feminine clothing and would be arrested if found not wearing them. Typically, employees and management of the bars were also arrested. The period immediately before June 28, 1969, was marked by frequent raids of local bars—including a raid at the Stonewall Inn on the Tuesday before the riots—and the closing of the Checkerboard, the Tele-Star, and two other clubs in Greenwich Village.

Historian David Carter presents information indicating that the Mafia owners of the Stonewall and the manager were blackmailing wealthier customers, particularly those who worked in the Financial District. They appeared to be making more money from extortion than they were from liquor sales in the bar. Carter deduces that when the police were unable to receive kickbacks from blackmail and the theft of negotiable bonds (facilitated by pressuring gay Wall Street customers), they decided to close the Stonewall Inn permanently.

Riots

Police raid

Layout of the Stonewall Inn, 1969

 

The sign left by police following the raid is now on display just inside the entrance.

Two undercover policewomen and two undercover policemen entered the bar early that evening to gather visual evidence, as the Public Morals Squad waited outside for the signal. Once ready, the undercover officers called for backup from the Sixth Precinct using the bar's pay telephone. Stonewall employees do not recall being tipped off that a raid was to occur that night, as was the custom. According to Duberman (p. 194), there was a rumor that one might happen, but since it was much later than raids generally took place, Stonewall management thought the tip was inaccurate.

At 1:20 a.m. on Saturday, June 28, 1969, four plainclothes policemen in dark suits, two patrol officers in uniform, Detective Charles Smythe, and Deputy Inspector Seymour Pine arrived at the Stonewall Inn's double doors and announced "Police! We're taking the place!" The music was turned off and the main lights were turned on. Approximately 205 people were in the bar that night. Patrons who had never experienced a police raid were confused. A few who realized what was happening began to run for doors and windows in the bathrooms, but police barred the doors. Michael Fader remembered,

Things happened so fast you kind of got caught not knowing. All of a sudden there were police there and we were told to all get in lines and to have our identification ready to be led out of the bar.

The raid did not go as planned. Standard procedure was to line up the patrons, check their identification and have female police officers take customers dressed as women to the bathroom to verify their sex, upon which any people appearing to be physically male and dressed as women would be arrested. Those dressed as women that night refused to go with the officers. Men in line began to refuse to produce their identification. The police decided to take everyone present to the police station, after separating those suspected of cross-dressing in a room in the back of the bar. Both patrons and police recalled that a sense of discomfort spread very quickly, spurred by police who began to assault some of the lesbians by "feeling some of them up inappropriately" while frisking them.

When did you ever see a fag fight back? ... Now, times were a-changin'. Tuesday night was the last night for bullshit ... Predominantly, the theme [w]as, "this shit has got to stop!"

—anonymous Stonewall riots participant

The police were to transport the bar's alcohol in patrol wagons. Twenty-eight cases of beer and nineteen bottles of hard liquor were seized, but the patrol wagons had not yet arrived, so patrons were required to wait in line for about 15 minutes. Those who were not arrested were released from the front door, but they did not leave quickly as usual. Instead, they stopped outside and a crowd began to grow and watch. Within minutes, between 100 and 150 people had congregated outside, some after they were released from inside the Stonewall and some after noticing the police cars and the crowd. Although the police forcefully pushed or kicked some patrons out of the bar, some customers released by the police performed for the crowd by posing and saluting the police in an exaggerated fashion. The crowd's applause encouraged them further.

When the first patrol wagon arrived, Inspector Pine recalled that the crowd—most of whom were homosexual—had grown to at least ten times the number of people who were arrested and they all became very quiet. Confusion over radio communication delayed the arrival of a second wagon. The police began escorting Mafia members into the first wagon, to the cheers of the bystanders. Next, regular employees were loaded into the wagon. A bystander shouted, "Gay power!", someone began singing "We Shall Overcome" and the crowd reacted with amusement and general good humor mixed with "growing and intensive hostility". An officer shoved a person in drag, who responded by hitting him on the head with her purse as the crowd began to boo. Author Edmund White, who had been passing by, recalled, "Everyone's restless, angry, and high-spirited. No one has a slogan, no one even has an attitude, but something's brewing." Pennies, then beer bottles, were thrown at the wagon as a rumor spread through the crowd that patrons still inside the bar were being beaten.

A scuffle broke out when a woman in handcuffs was escorted from the door of the bar to the waiting police wagon several times. She escaped repeatedly and fought with four of the police, swearing and shouting, for about ten minutes. Described as "a typical New York butch" and "a dyke–stone butch", she had been hit on the head by an officer with a baton for, as one witness claimed, complaining that her handcuffs were too tight. Bystanders recalled that the woman, whose identity remains unknown (Stormé DeLarverie has been identified by some, including herself, as the woman, but accounts vary), sparked the crowd to fight when she looked at bystanders and shouted, "Why don't you guys do something?" After an officer picked her up and heaved her into the back of the wagon, the crowd became a mob and became violent.

Violence breaks out

The police tried to restrain some of the crowd, knocking a few people down, which incited bystanders even more. Some of those handcuffed in the wagon escaped when police left them unattended (deliberately, according to some witnesses). As the crowd tried to overturn the police wagon, two police cars and the wagon—with a few slashed tires—left immediately, with Inspector Pine urging them to return as soon as possible. The commotion attracted more people who learned what was happening. Someone in the crowd declared that the bar had been raided because "they didn't pay off the cops", to which someone else yelled "Let's pay them off!" Coins sailed through the air towards the police as the crowd shouted "Pigs!" and "Faggot cops!" Beer cans were thrown and the police lashed out, dispersing some of the crowd who found a construction site nearby with stacks of bricks. The police, outnumbered by between 500 and 600 people, grabbed several people, including folk singer (and mentor of Bob Dylan) Dave Van Ronk—who had been attracted to the revolt from a bar two doors away from the Stonewall. Though Van Ronk was not gay, he had experienced police violence when he participated in antiwar demonstrations: "As far as I was concerned, anybody who'd stand against the cops was all right with me and that's why I stayed in ... Every time you turned around the cops were pulling some outrage or another." Van Ronk was one of thirteen arrested that night. Ten police officers—including two policewomen—barricaded themselves, Van Ronk, Howard Smith (a column writer for The Village Voice), and several handcuffed detainees inside the Stonewall Inn for their own safety.

Multiple accounts of the riot assert that there was no pre-existing organization or apparent cause for the demonstration; what ensued was spontaneous. Michael Fader explained:

We all had a collective feeling like we'd had enough of this kind of shit. It wasn't anything tangible anybody said to anyone else, it was just kind of like everything over the years had come to a head on that one particular night in the one particular place and it was not an organized demonstration ... Everyone in the crowd felt that we were never going to go back. It was like the last straw. It was time to reclaim something that had always been taken from us ... All kinds of people, all different reasons, but mostly it was total outrage, anger, sorrow, everything combined, and everything just kind of ran its course. It was the police who were doing most of the destruction. We were really trying to get back in and break free. And we felt that we had freedom at last, or freedom to at least show that we demanded freedom. We weren't going to be walking meekly in the night and letting them shove us around—it's like standing your ground for the first time and in a really strong way and that's what caught the police by surprise. There was something in the air, freedom a long time overdue and we're going to fight for it. It took different forms, but the bottom line was, we weren't going to go away. And we didn't.

This photograph – the only known photo of the riots – appeared on the front page of The New York Daily News on Sunday, June 29, 1969. Here the "street kids" who were the first to fight back against the police are seen.

The only known photograph taken during the first night of the riots, taken by freelance photographer Joseph Ambrosini, shows the homeless gay youth who slept in nearby Christopher Park, scuffling with police. Jackie Hormona and Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt are on the far left.

The Mattachine Society newsletter a month later offered its explanation of why the riots occurred: "It catered largely to a group of people who are not welcome in, or cannot afford, other places of homosexual social gathering ... The Stonewall became home to these kids. When it was raided, they fought for it. That and the fact that they had nothing to lose other than the most tolerant and broadminded gay place in town, explains why."

Garbage cans, garbage, bottles, rocks, and bricks were hurled at the building, breaking the windows. Witnesses attest that "flame queens", hustlers and gay "street kids"—the most outcast people in the gay community—were responsible for the first volley of projectiles, as well as the uprooting of a parking meter used as a battering ram on the doors of the Stonewall Inn.

The mob lit garbage on fire and stuffed it through the broken windows as the police grabbed a fire hose. Because it had no water pressure, the hose was ineffective in dispersing the crowd and seemed only to encourage them. Marsha P. Johnson later said that it was the police that had started the fire in the bar. When demonstrators broke through the windows—which had been covered by plywood by the bar owners to deter the police from raiding the bar—the police inside unholstered their pistols. The doors flew open and officers pointed their weapons at the angry crowd, threatening to shoot. Howard Smith, in the bar with the police, took a wrench from the bar and stuffed it in his pants, unsure if he might have to use it against the mob or the police. He watched someone squirt lighter fluid into the bar; as it was lit and the police took aim, sirens were heard and fire trucks arrived. The onslaught had lasted 45 minutes.

When the violence broke out, the women and transmasculine people being held down the street at The Women's House of Detention joined in by chanting, setting fire to their belongings and tossing them into the street below. The historian Hugh Ryan says, "When I would talk to people about Stonewall, they would tell me, that night on Stonewall, we looked to the prison because we saw the women rioting and chanting, “Gay rights, gay rights, gay rights."

Escalation

The Tactical Patrol Force (TPF) of the New York City Police Department arrived to free the police trapped inside the Stonewall. One officer's eye was cut and a few others were bruised from being struck by flying debris. Bob Kohler, who was walking his dog by the Stonewall that night, saw the TPF arrive: "I had been in enough riots to know the fun was over ... The cops were totally humiliated. This never, ever happened. They were angrier than I guess they had ever been, because everybody else had rioted ... but the fairies were not supposed to riot ... no group had ever forced cops to retreat before, so the anger was just enormous. I mean, they wanted to kill." With larger numbers, police detained anyone they could and put them in patrol wagons to go to jail, though Inspector Pine recalled, "Fights erupted with the transvestites, who wouldn't go into the patrol wagon." His recollection was corroborated by another witness across the street who said, "All I could see about who was fighting was that it was transvestites and they were fighting furiously."

The TPF formed a phalanx and attempted to clear the streets by marching slowly and pushing the crowd back. The mob openly mocked the police. The crowd cheered, started impromptu kick lines and sang to the tune of "Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay": "We are the Stonewall girls/ We wear our hair in curls/ We don't wear underwear/ We show our pubic hair." Lucian Truscott reported in The Village Voice: "A stagnant situation there brought on some gay tomfoolery in the form of a chorus line facing the line of helmeted and club-carrying cops. Just as the line got into a full kick routine, the TPF advanced again and cleared the crowd of screaming gay power[-]ites down Christopher to Seventh Avenue." One participant who had been in the Stonewall during the raid recalled, "The police rushed us and that's when I realized this is not a good thing to do, because they got me in the back with a nightstick." Another account stated, "I just can't ever get that one sight out of my mind. The cops with the [nightsticks] and the kick line on the other side. It was the most amazing thing ... And all the sudden that kick line, which I guess was a spoof on the machismo ... I think that's when I felt rage. Because people were getting smashed with bats. And for what? A kick line."

Marsha P. Johnson, an African-American street queen, recalled arriving at the bar around "2:00 [am]", and that at that point the riots were well under way, with the building in flames. As the riots went on into the early hours of the morning, Johnson, along with Zazu Nova and Jackie Hormona, were noted as "three individuals known to have been in the vanguard" of the pushback against the police.

Craig Rodwell, owner of the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop, reported watching police chase participants through the crooked streets, only to see them appear around the next corner behind the police. Members of the mob stopped cars, overturning one of them to block Christopher Street. Jack Nichols and Lige Clarke, in their column printed in Screw, declared that "massive crowds of angry protesters chased [the police] for blocks screaming, 'Catch them!'"

Christopher Park, where many of the demonstrators met after the first night of rioting to talk about what had happened. It is now the site of the Gay Liberation Monument, featuring a sculpture of four figures by George Segal.

By 4:00 a.m., the streets had nearly been cleared. Many people sat on stoops or gathered nearby in Christopher Park throughout the morning, dazed in disbelief at what had transpired. Many witnesses remembered the surreal and eerie quiet that descended upon Christopher Street, though there continued to be "electricity in the air". One commented: "There was a certain beauty in the aftermath of the riot ... It was obvious, at least to me, that a lot of people really were gay and, you know, this was our street." Thirteen people had been arrested. Some in the crowd were hospitalized, and four police officers were injured. Almost everything in the Stonewall Inn was broken. Inspector Pine had intended to close and dismantle the Stonewall Inn that night. Pay phones, toilets, mirrors, jukeboxes, and cigarette machines were all smashed, possibly in the riot and possibly by the police.

Second night of rioting

During the siege of the Stonewall, Craig Rodwell called The New York Times, the New York Post and the Daily News to tell them what was happening. All three papers covered the riots; the Daily News placed coverage on the front page. News of the riot spread quickly throughout Greenwich Village, fueled by rumors that it had been organized by the Students for a Democratic Society, the Black Panthers, or triggered by "a homosexual police officer whose roommate went dancing at the Stonewall against the officer's wishes". All day Saturday, June 28, people came to stare at the burned and blackened Stonewall Inn. Graffiti appeared on the walls of the bar, declaring "Drag power", "They invaded our rights", "Support gay power" and "Legalize gay bars", along with accusations of police looting and—regarding the status of the bar—"We are open."

The next night, rioting again surrounded Christopher Street; participants remember differently which night was more frantic or violent. Many of the same people returned from the previous evening—hustlers, street youths, and "queens"—but they were joined by "police provocateurs", curious bystanders, and even tourists. Remarkable to many was the sudden exhibition of homosexual affection in public, as described by one witness: "From going to places where you had to knock on a door and speak to someone through a peephole in order to get in. We were just out. We were in the streets."

Thousands of people had gathered in front of the Stonewall, which had opened again, choking Christopher Street until the crowd spilled into adjoining blocks. The throng surrounded buses and cars, harassing the occupants unless they either admitted they were gay or indicated their support for the demonstrators. Marsha P. Johnson was seen climbing a lamppost and dropping a heavy bag onto the hood of a police car, shattering the windshield.

As on the previous evening, fires were started in garbage cans throughout the neighborhood. More than a hundred police were present from the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Ninth Precincts, but after 2:00 a.m. the TPF arrived again. Kick lines and police chases waxed and waned; when police captured demonstrators, whom the majority of witnesses described as "sissies" or "swishes", the crowd surged to recapture them. Again, street battling ensued until 4:00 a.m.

Beat poet and longtime Greenwich Village resident Allen Ginsberg lived on Christopher Street and happened upon the jubilant chaos. After he learned of the riot that had occurred the previous evening, he stated, "Gay power! Isn't that great! ... It's about time we did something to assert ourselves" and visited the open Stonewall Inn for the first time. While walking home, he declared to Lucian Truscott, "You know, the guys there were so beautiful—they've lost that wounded look that fags all had 10 years ago."

Leaflets, press coverage, and more violence

Activity in Greenwich Village was sporadic on Monday and Tuesday, partly due to rain. Police and Village residents had a few altercations, as both groups antagonized each other. Craig Rodwell and his partner Fred Sargeant took the opportunity the morning after the first riot to print and distribute 5,000 leaflets, one of them reading: "Get the Mafia and the Cops out of Gay Bars." The leaflets called for gay people to own their own establishments, for a boycott of the Stonewall and other Mafia-owned bars, and for public pressure on the mayor's office to investigate the "intolerable situation".

Not everyone in the gay community considered the revolt a positive development. To many older homosexuals and many members of the Mattachine Society who had worked throughout the 1960s to promote homosexuals as no different from heterosexuals, the display of violence and effeminate behavior was embarrassing. Randy Wicker, who had marched in the first gay picket lines before the White House in 1965, said the "screaming queens forming chorus lines and kicking went against everything that I wanted people to think about homosexuals ... that we were a bunch of drag queens in the Village acting disorderly and tacky and cheap." Others found the closing of the Stonewall Inn, termed a "sleaze joint", as advantageous to the Village.

On Wednesday, however, The Village Voice ran reports of the riots, written by Howard Smith and Lucian Truscott, that included unflattering descriptions of the events and its participants: "forces of faggotry", "limp wrists" and "Sunday fag follies". A mob descended upon Christopher Street once again and threatened to burn down the offices of The Village Voice. Also in the mob of between 500 and 1,000 were other groups that had had unsuccessful confrontations with the police and were curious how the police were defeated in this situation. Another explosive street battle took place, with injuries to demonstrators and police alike, local shops getting looted, and arrests of five people. The incidents on Wednesday night lasted about an hour and were summarized by one witness: "The word is out. Christopher Street shall be liberated. The fags have had it with oppression."

Aftermath

The feeling of urgency spread throughout Greenwich Village, even to people who had not witnessed the riots. Many who were moved by the rebellion attended organizational meetings, sensing an opportunity to take action. On July 4, 1969, the Mattachine Society performed its annual picket in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, called the Annual Reminder. Organizers Craig Rodwell, Frank Kameny, Randy Wicker, Barbara Gittings, and Kay Lahusen, who had all participated for several years, took a bus along with other picketers from New York City to Philadelphia. Since 1965, the pickets had been very controlled: women wore skirts and men wore suits and ties and all marched quietly in organized lines. This year Rodwell remembered feeling restricted by the rules Kameny had set. When two women spontaneously held hands, Kameny broke them apart, saying, "None of that! None of that!" Rodwell, however, convinced about ten couples to hold hands. The hand-holding couples made Kameny furious, but they earned more press attention than all of the previous marches. Participant Lilli Vincenz remembered, "It was clear that things were changing. People who had felt oppressed now felt empowered." Rodwell returned to New York City determined to change the established quiet, meek ways of trying to get attention. One of his first priorities was planning Christopher Street Liberation Day.

Gay rights demonstration in Trafalgar Square, London, including members of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF). The GLF in the UK held its first meeting in a basement classroom at the London School of Economics on October 13, 1970. The organization was very informal, instituting marches and other activities, leading to the first British Gay Pride March in 1972.

Gay Liberation Front

Although the Mattachine Society had existed since the 1950s, many of their methods now seemed too mild for people who had witnessed or been inspired by the riots. Mattachine recognized the shift in attitudes in a story from their newsletter entitled, "The Hairpin Drop Heard Around the World." When a Mattachine officer suggested an "amicable and sweet" candlelight vigil demonstration, a man in the audience fumed and shouted, "Sweet! Bullshit! That's the role society has been forcing these queens to play." With a flyer announcing: "Do You Think Homosexuals Are Revolting? You Bet Your Sweet Ass We Are!", the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) was soon formed, the first gay organization to use gay in its name. Previous organizations such as the Mattachine Society, the Daughters of Bilitis and various homophile groups had masked their purpose by deliberately choosing obscure names.

The rise of militancy became apparent to Frank Kameny and Barbara Gittings—who had worked in homophile organizations for years and were both very public about their roles—when they attended a GLF meeting to see the new group. A young GLF member demanded to know who they were and what their credentials were. Gittings, nonplussed, stammered, "I'm gay. That's why I'm here." The GLF borrowed tactics from and aligned themselves with black and antiwar demonstrators with the ideal that they "could work to restructure American society". They took on causes of the Black Panthers, marching to the Women's House of Detention in support of Afeni Shakur and other radical New Left causes. Four months after the group formed, however, it disbanded when members were unable to agree on operating procedure.

Gay Activists Alliance

Within six months of the Stonewall riots, activists started a citywide newspaper called Gay; they considered it necessary because the most liberal publication in the city—The Village Voice—refused to print the word gay in GLF advertisements seeking new members and volunteers. Two other newspapers were initiated within a six-week period: Come Out! and Gay Power; the readership of these three periodicals quickly climbed to between 20,000 and 25,000.

GLF members organized several same-sex dances, but GLF meetings were chaotic. When Bob Kohler asked for clothes and money to help the homeless youth who had participated in the riots, many of whom slept in Christopher Park or Sheridan Square, the response was a discussion on the downfall of capitalism. In late December 1969, several people who had visited GLF meetings and left out of frustration formed the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA). The GAA was to be more orderly and entirely focused on gay issues. Their constitution began, "We as liberated homosexual activists demand the freedom for expression of our dignity and value as human beings." The GAA developed and perfected a confrontational tactic called a zap: they would catch a politician off guard during a public relations opportunity and force him or her to acknowledge gay and lesbian rights. City councilmen were zapped and mayor John Lindsay was zapped several times—once on television when GAA members made up the majority of the audience.

Police raids on gay bars did not stop after the Stonewall riots. In March 1970, deputy inspector Seymour Pine raided the Zodiac and 17 Barrow Street. An after-hours gay club with no liquor or occupancy licenses called The Snake Pit was soon raided and 167 people were arrested. One of them was Diego Viñales, an Argentinian national so frightened that he might be deported as a homosexual that he tried to escape the police precinct by jumping out of a two-story window, impaling himself on a 14-inch (36 cm) spike fence. The New York Daily News printed a graphic photo of the young man's impalement on the front page. GAA members organized a march from Christopher Park to the Sixth Precinct in which hundreds of gay men, lesbians, and liberal sympathizers peacefully confronted the TPF. They also sponsored a letter-writing campaign to Mayor Lindsay in which the Greenwich Village Democratic Party and congressman Ed Koch sent pleas to end raids on gay bars in the city.

The Stonewall Inn lasted only a few weeks after the riot. By October 1969 it was up for rent. Village residents surmised it was too notorious a location and Rodwell's boycott discouraged business.

Gay Pride

Main article: NYC Pride March § Origins

Christopher Street Liberation Day, on June 28, 1970, marked the first anniversary of the Stonewall riots with an assembly on Christopher Street; with simultaneous Gay Pride marches in Los Angeles and Chicago, these were the first Gay Pride marches in US history. The next year, Gay Pride marches took place in Boston, Dallas, Milwaukee, London, Paris, West Berlin and Stockholm. The march in New York covered 51 blocks, from Christopher Street to Central Park. The march took less than half the scheduled time due to excitement, but also due to wariness about walking through the city with gay banners and signs. Although the parade permit was delivered only two hours before the start of the march, the marchers encountered little resistance from onlookers. The New York Times reported (on the front page) that the marchers took up the entire street for about 15 city blocks. Reporting by The Village Voice was positive, describing "the out-front resistance that grew out of the police raid on the Stonewall Inn one year ago".

There was little open animosity and some bystanders applauded when a tall, pretty girl carrying a sign "I am a Lesbian" walked by.

—The New York Times coverage of Gay Liberation Day, 1970

By 1972, the participating cities included Atlanta, Buffalo, Detroit, Washington, D.C., Miami, Minneapolis and Philadelphia, as well as San Francisco.

Frank Kameny soon realized the pivotal change brought by the Stonewall riots. An organizer of gay activism in the 1950s, he was used to persuasion, trying to convince heterosexuals that gay people were no different from them. When he and other people marched in front of the White House, the State Department, and Independence Hall only five years earlier, their objective was to look as if they could work for the US government. Ten people marched with Kameny then and they alerted no press to their intentions. Although he was stunned by the upheaval by participants in the Annual Reminder in 1969, he later observed, "By the time of Stonewall, we had fifty to sixty gay groups in the country. A year later there was at least fifteen hundred. By two years later, to the extent that a count could be made, it was twenty-five hundred."

Similar to Kameny's regret at his own reaction to the shift in attitudes after the riots, Randy Wicker came to describe his embarrassment as "one of the greatest mistakes of his life". The image of gay people retaliating against police, after so many years of allowing such treatment to go unchallenged, "stirred an unexpected spirit among many homosexuals". Kay Lahusen, who photographed the marches in 1965, stated, "Up to 1969, this movement was generally called the homosexual or homophile movement ... Many new activists consider the Stonewall uprising the birth of the gay liberation movement. Certainly it was the birth of gay pride on a massive scale." David Carter, in his article "What made Stonewall different", explained that even though there were several uprisings before Stonewall, the reason Stonewall was so significant was that thousands of people were involved, the riot lasted a long time (six days), it was the first to get major media coverage, and it sparked the formation of many gay rights groups.

Legacy

The Stonewall riots are often considered to be the origin or impetus of the gay liberation movement, and many studies of LGBT history in the U.S. are divided into pre- and post-Stonewall analyses. However, this has been criticized by historians of sexuality. Calls for the rights of gender and sexual minorities predate the Stonewall riots, and there was already the emergence of a gay liberation movement in New York at the time of the riots. The Stonewall riots were not the only time LGBT people organized politically amid attacks on LGBT establishments. However, the event has been said to occupy a unique place in the collective memory of many LGBT people, including those outside of the United States, as it "is marked by an international commemorative ritual – an annual gay pride parade", according to sociologist Elizabeth A. Armstrong.

Community

Banner reading "Stonewall was a riot" pictured during Berlin Pride, 2009

Within two years of the Stonewall riots there were gay rights groups in every major American city, as well as in Canada, Australia, and Western Europe. People who joined activist organizations after the riots had very little in common other than their same-sex attraction. Many who arrived at GLF or GAA meetings were taken aback by the number of gay people in one place. Race, class, ideology, and gender became frequent obstacles in the years after the riots. This was illustrated during the 1973 Stonewall rally when, moments after Barbara Gittings exuberantly praised the diversity of the crowd, feminist activist Jean O'Leary protested what she perceived as the mocking of women by cross-dressers and drag queens in attendance. During a speech by O'Leary, in which she claimed that drag queens made fun of women for entertainment value and profit, Sylvia Rivera and Lee Brewster jumped on the stage and shouted "You go to bars because of what drag queens did for you and these bitches tell us to quit being ourselves!" Both the drag queens and lesbian feminists in attendance left in disgust.

Queer anarchists at Stockholm pride with banner reading "Remember Stonewall"

O'Leary also worked in the early 1970s to exclude transgender people from gay rights issues because she felt that rights for transgender people would be too difficult to attain. Sylvia Rivera left New York City in the mid-1970s, relocating to upstate New York, but later returned to the city in the mid-1990s to advocate for homeless members of the gay community. The initial disagreements among participants in the movements, however, often evolved after further reflection. O'Leary later regretted her stance against the drag queens attending in 1973: "Looking back, I find this so embarrassing because my views have changed so much since then. I would never pick on a transvestite now." "It was horrible. How could I work to exclude transvestites and at the same time criticize the feminists who were doing their best back in those days to exclude lesbians?"

O'Leary was referring to the Lavender Menace, an appellation by second wave feminist Betty Friedan based on attempts by members of the National Organization for Women (NOW) to distance themselves from the perception of NOW as a haven for lesbians. As part of this process, Rita Mae Brown and other lesbians who had been active in NOW were forced out. They staged a protest in 1970 at the Second Congress to Unite Women and earned the support of many NOW members, finally gaining full acceptance in 1971.

The growth of lesbian feminism in the 1970s at times so conflicted with the gay liberation movement that some lesbians refused to work with gay men. Many lesbians found men's attitudes patriarchal and chauvinistic and saw in gay men the same misguided notions about women that they saw in heterosexual men. The issues most important to gay men—entrapment and public solicitation—were not shared by lesbians. In 1977, a Lesbian Pride Rally was organized as an alternative to sharing gay men's issues, especially what Adrienne Rich termed "the violent, self-destructive world of the gay bars". Veteran gay activist Barbara Gittings chose to work in the gay rights movement, explaining, "It's a matter of where does it hurt the most? For me it hurts the most not in the female arena, but the gay arena."

Throughout the 1970s, gay activism had significant successes. One of the first and most important was the "zap" in May 1970 by the Los Angeles GLF at a convention of the American Psychiatric Association (APA). At a conference on behavior modification, during a film demonstrating the use of electroshock therapy to decrease same-sex attraction, Morris Kight and GLF members in the audience interrupted the film with shouts of "Torture!" and "Barbarism!" They took over the microphone to announce that medical professionals who prescribed such therapy for their homosexual patients were complicit in torturing them. Although 20 psychiatrists in attendance left, the GLF spent the hour following the zap with those remaining, trying to convince them that homosexual people were not mentally ill. When the APA invited gay activists to speak to the group in 1972, activists brought John E. Fryer, a gay psychiatrist who wore a mask, because he felt his practice was in danger. In December 1973—in large part due to the efforts of gay activists—the APA voted unanimously to remove homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual.

Gay men and lesbians came together to work in grassroots political organizations responding to organized resistance in 1977. A coalition of conservatives named Save Our Children staged a campaign to repeal a civil rights ordinance in Miami Dade County. Save Our Children was successful enough to influence similar repeals in several American cities in 1978. However, that same year, a campaign in California called the Briggs Initiative, designed to force the dismissal of homosexual public school employees, was defeated. Reaction to the influence of Save Our Children and the Briggs Initiative in the gay community was so significant that it has been called the second Stonewall for many activists, marking their initiation into political participation. The subsequent 1979 National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights was timed to coincide with the tenth anniversary of the Stonewall riots.

Rejection of prior gay subculture

The Stonewall riots marked such a significant turning point that many aspects of prior gay and lesbian culture, such as bar culture formed from decades of shame and secrecy, were forcefully ignored and denied. Historian Martin Duberman writes, "The decades preceding Stonewall ... continue to be regarded by most gay men and lesbians as some vast neolithic wasteland." Sociologist Barry Adam notes, "Every social movement must choose at some point what to retain and what to reject out of its past. What traits are the results of oppression and what are healthy and authentic?" In conjunction with the growing feminist movement of the early 1970s, roles of butch and femme that developed in lesbian bars in the 1950s and 1960s were rejected, because as one writer put it: "all role playing is sick." Lesbian feminists considered the butch roles as archaic imitations of masculine behavior. Some women, according to Lillian Faderman, were eager to shed the roles they felt forced into playing. The roles returned for some women in the 1980s, although they allowed for more flexibility than before Stonewall.

Author Michael Bronski highlights the "attack on pre-Stonewall culture", particularly gay pulp fiction for men, where the themes often reflected self-hatred or ambivalence about being gay. Many books ended unsatisfactorily and drastically, often with suicide, and writers portrayed their gay characters as alcoholics or deeply unhappy. These books, which he describes as "an enormous and cohesive literature by and for gay men", have not been reissued and are lost to later generations. Dismissing the notion that the rejection was motivated by political correctness, Bronski writes, "gay liberation was a youth movement whose sense of history was defined to a large degree by rejection of the past."

Lasting impact and recognition

The Stonewall, a bar in part of the building where the Stonewall Inn was located. The building and the surrounding streets have been declared a National Historic Landmark.

The riots spawned from a bar raid became a literal example of gay men and lesbians fighting back and a symbolic call to arms for many people. Historian David Carter remarks in his book about the Stonewall riots that the bar itself was a complex business that represented a community center, an opportunity for the Mafia to blackmail its own customers, a home, and a place of "exploitation and degradation". The true legacy of the Stonewall riots, Carter insists, is the "ongoing struggle for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender equality". Historian Nicholas Edsall writes:

Stonewall has been compared to any number of acts of radical protest and defiance in American history from the Boston Tea Party on. But the best and certainly a more nearly contemporary analogy is with Rosa Parks' refusal to move to the back of the bus in Montgomery, Alabama, in December 1955, which sparked the modern civil rights movement. Within months after Stonewall, radical gay liberation groups and newsletters sprang up in cities and on college campuses across America and then across all of northern Europe as well.

Before the rebellion at the Stonewall Inn, homosexuals were, as historians Dudley Clendinen and Adam Nagourney write:

a secret legion of people, known of but discounted, ignored, laughed at or despised. And like the holders of a secret, they had an advantage which was a disadvantage too, and which was true of no other minority group in the United States. They were invisible. Unlike African Americans, women, Native Americans, Jews, the Irish, Italians, Asians, Hispanics, or any other cultural group which struggled for respect and equal rights, homosexuals had no physical or cultural markings, no language or dialect which could identify them to each other, or to anyone else ... But that night, for the first time, the usual acquiescence turned into violent resistance ... From that night the lives of millions of gay men and lesbians and the attitude toward them of the larger culture in which they lived, began to change rapidly. People began to appear in public as homosexuals, demanding respect.

Historian Lillian Faderman calls the riots the "shot heard round the world", explaining, "The Stonewall Rebellion was crucial because it sounded the rally for that movement. It became an emblem of gay and lesbian power. By calling on the dramatic tactic of violent protest that was being used by other oppressed groups, the events at the Stonewall implied that homosexuals had as much reason to be disaffected as they."

Joan Nestle co-founded the Lesbian Herstory Archives in 1974 and credits "its creation to that night and the courage that found its voice in the streets." Cautious, however, not to attribute the start of gay activism to the Stonewall riots, Nestle writes:

I certainly don't see gay and lesbian history starting with Stonewall ... and I don't see resistance starting with Stonewall. What I do see is a historical coming together of forces, and the sixties changed how human beings endured things in this society and what they refused to endure ... Certainly something special happened on that night in 1969 and we've made it more special in our need to have what I call a point of origin ... it's more complex than saying that it all started with Stonewall.

The events of the early morning of June 28, 1969, were not the first instances of gay men and lesbians fighting back against police in New York City and elsewhere. Not only had the Mattachine Society been active in major cities such as Los Angeles and Chicago, but similarly marginalized people started the riot at Compton's Cafeteria in 1966 and another riot responded to a raid on Los Angeles' Black Cat Tavern in 1967. However, several circumstances were in play that made the Stonewall riots memorable. The location of the Lower Manhattan raid was a factor: it was across the street from The Village Voice offices, and the narrow crooked streets gave the rioters advantage over the police. Many of the participants and residents of Greenwich Village were involved in political organizations that were effectively able to mobilize a large and cohesive gay community in the weeks and months after the rebellion. The most significant facet of the Stonewall riots, however, was the commemoration of them in Christopher Street Liberation Day, which grew into the annual Gay Pride events around the world.

Stonewall (officially Stonewall Equality Limited) is an LGBT rights charity in the United Kingdom, founded in 1989 and named after the Stonewall Inn because of the Stonewall riots. The Stonewall Awards is an annual event the charity has held since 2006 to recognize people who have affected the lives of British lesbian, gay, and bisexual people.

The middle of the 1990s was marked by the inclusion of bisexuals as a represented group within the gay community, when they successfully sought to be included on the platform of the 1993 March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation. Transgender people also asked to be included but were not, though trans-inclusive language was added to the march's list of demands. The transgender community continued to find itself simultaneously welcome and at odds with the gay community as attitudes about non-binary gender discrimination and pansexual orientation developed and came increasingly into conflict. In 1994, New York City celebrated "Stonewall 25" with a march that went past the United Nations Headquarters and into Central Park. Estimates put the attendance at 1.1 million people. Sylvia Rivera led an alternate march in New York City in 1994 to protest the exclusion of transgender people from the events. Attendance at LGBT Pride events has grown substantially over the decades. Most large cities around the world now have some kind of Pride demonstration. Pride events in some cities mark the largest annual celebration of any kind. The growing trend towards commercializing marches into parades—with events receiving corporate sponsorship—has caused concern about taking away the autonomy of the original grassroots demonstrations that put inexpensive activism in the hands of individuals.

In Paris (France), town square commemorating the Stonewall Riots

A "Stonewall Shabbat Seder" was first held at B'nai Jeshurun, a synagogue on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, in 1995.

President Barack Obama declared June 2009 Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month, citing the riots as a reason to "commit to achieving equal justice under law for LGBT Americans". The year marked the 40th anniversary of the riots, giving journalists and activists cause to reflect on progress made since 1969. Frank Rich noted in The New York Times that no federal legislation exists to protect the rights of gay Americans. An editorial in the Washington Blade compared the scruffy, violent activism during and following the Stonewall riots to the lackluster response to failed promises given by President Obama; for being ignored, wealthy LGBT activists reacted by promising to give less money to Democratic causes. Two years later, the Stonewall Inn served as a rallying point for celebrations after the New York State Senate voted to pass same-sex marriage. The act was signed into law by governor Andrew Cuomo on June 24, 2011.

Individual states continue to battle with homophobia. The Missouri Senate passed a measure its supporters characterize as a religious freedom bill that could change the state's constitution despite Democrats' objections and their 39-hour filibuster. This bill allows the "protection of certain religious organizations and individuals from being penalized by the state because of their sincere religious beliefs or practices concerning marriage between two persons of the same sex" discriminating against homosexual patronage.

Obama also referenced the Stonewall riots in a call for full equality during his second inaugural address on January 21, 2013:

We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths—that all of us are created equal—is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls and Selma and Stonewall ... Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law—for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.

This was a historic moment: the first time that a president mentioned gay rights or the word "gay" in an inaugural address.

In 2014, a marker dedicated to the Stonewall riots was included in the Legacy Walk, an outdoor public display in Chicago celebrating LGBT history and people.

Throughout June 2019, Stonewall 50 – WorldPride NYC 2019, produced by Heritage of Pride in partnership with the I Love New York program's LGBT division, took place in New York to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising. The final official estimate included 5 million visitors attending in Manhattan alone, making it the largest LGBTQ celebration in history. June is traditionally Pride month in New York City and worldwide, and the events were held under the auspices of the annual NYC Pride March. An apology from New York City Police Commissioner James P. O'Neill, on June 6, 2019, coincided with WorldPride being celebrated in New York City. O'Neill apologized on behalf of the NYPD for the actions of its officers at the Stonewall uprising in 1969.

The official 50th anniversary commemoration of the Stonewall Uprising occurred on June 28 on Christopher Street in front of Stonewall Inn. The official commemoration was themed as a rally, in reference to the original rallies in front of Stonewall Inn in 1969. Speakers at this event included mayor Bill De Blasio, senator Kirsten Gillibrand, congressman Jerry Nadler, American activist X González, and global activist Rémy Bonny.

In 2019, Paris, France, officially named a square in the Marais district as Place des Émeutes-de-Stonewall (Stonewall Riots Place).

Stonewall Day

Stonewall Day logo by Pride Live

In 2018, 49 years after the uprising, Stonewall Day was announced as a commemoration day by Pride Live, a social advocacy and community engagement organization. The second Stonewall Day was held on Friday, June 28, 2019, outside the Stonewall Inn. During this event, Pride Live introduced their Stonewall Ambassadors program, to raise awareness for the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. Those appearing at the event included: Geena Rocero, First Lady of New York City Chirlane McCray, Josephine Skriver, Wilson Cruz, Ryan Jamaal Swain, Angelica Ross, Donatella Versace, Conchita Wurst, Bob the Drag Queen, Whoopi Goldberg, and Lady Gaga, with performances by Alex Newell and Alicia Keys.

Historic landmark and monument

Main article: Stonewall National Monument

 

A banner hanging from the top of the building the day after President Obama announced creation of the Stonewall National Monument

 

Plaque commemorating the Stonewall Riots

In June 1999, the US Department of the Interior included 51 and 53 Christopher Street and the surrounding area in Greenwich Village into the National Register of Historic Places, the first of significance to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community. In a dedication ceremony, Assistant Secretary of the Department of the Interior John Berry stated, "Let it forever be remembered that here—on this spot—men and women stood proud, they stood fast, so that we may be who we are, we may work where we will, live where we choose, and love whom our hearts desire." The Stonewall Inn was itself named a National Historic Landmark in February 2000.

In May 2015, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission announced it would officially consider designating the Stonewall Inn as a landmark, making it the first city location to be considered based on its LGBT cultural significance alone. On June 23, 2015, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission unanimously approved the designation of the Stonewall Inn as a city landmark, making it the first landmark honored for its role in the fight for gay rights.

On June 24, 2016, President Obama announced the establishment of the Stonewall National Monument site to be administered by the National Park Service. The designation, which followed transfer of city parkland to the federal government, protects Christopher Park and adjacent areas totaling more than seven acres; the Stonewall Inn is within the boundaries of the monument but remains privately owned. The National Park Foundation formed a new nonprofit organization to raise funds for a ranger station and interpretive exhibits for the monument.

Media representations

No newsreel or TV footage was taken of the riots and few home movies and photographs exist, but those that do have been used in documentaries.

Film

• Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community (1984), a documentary on the decades leading up to the Stonewall Rebellion
• Stonewall (1995), a dramatic presentation of the events leading up to the riots
• After Stonewall (1999), a documentary of the years from Stonewall to the century's end
• Stonewall Uprising (2010), a documentary using archival footage, photographs, documents and witness statements
• Stonewall (2015), a drama about a fictional protagonist who interacts with fictionalized versions of some of the people in and around the riots
• Happy Birthday, Marsha! (2016), a short, experimental drama, inspired by some of the legends surrounding gay and transgender rights activists Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, set on the night of the riots

Music

• Activist Madeline Davis wrote the folk song "Stonewall Nation" in 1971 after attending her first gay civil rights march. Released on Mark Custom Recording Service, it is widely regarded as the first gay liberation record, with lyrics that "celebrate the resiliency and potential power of radical gay activism."
• The song "'69: Judy Garland", written by Stephin Merritt and appearing on 50 Song Memoir by The Magnetic Fields, centers on the Stonewall Riots and the idea that they were caused by the death of Judy Garland six days earlier, on June 22, 1969.
• New York City Opera commissioned the English composer Iain Bell and American librettist Mark Campbell in 2018 to write the opera Stonewall to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the riots, to be premiered on June 19, 2019 and directed by Leonard Foglia.
• The Stonewall Celebration Concert is the debut studio album by Renato Russo, released in 1994. The album was a tribute to twenty five years of the Stonewall riots in New York. Part of the royalties were donated to Ação da Cidadania Contra a Fome, a Miséria e Pela Vida (Citizen Action Against Hunger and Poverty and for Life) campaign.

Theatre

• Street Theatre (1982) by Doric Wilson