Against the Tide: Stonewall Riots

The timing of the Stonewall Inn Riots is significant for a number of reasons. These riots, which sparked the movement for gay rights, occurred only after a newly discovered sense of community took root among gays and lesbians. This sense of identity developed along side and was influenced by the growing struggle of other minority groups for equal rights and acceptance.

In the late 1920’s the covert formation of gay communities started to take place due in large part to the migration toward rapidly growing urban areas. The number of gays and lesbians who began to move to cities like New York to escape rejection from families and find others who were like them did more then carve a community out for themselves. They became involved in the African American community already thriving in these places. This influence on the young homosexual mindset would be pivotal in creating the foundation for a gay rights movement.

The time leading up and in to WWII was a mixed blessing for gays and lesbians. Due to increased homo-social interaction and financial opportunity it was a time of acceptance and increased freedom. Shortly after the war though this acceptance diminished, as lesbians and other women lost their financial independence, male and female soldiers returned home to a strict gender roles and the military that these individuals loyally served began kicking them out with no place else to go. Many gays and lesbians were unwilling to return to life as it was before the war but didn’t know what other choice was available.

After WWII and into the years of Senator McCarthy’s service, homosexuals experienced a very different sentiment. Discrimination and fear of what was not understood set the mood of the time as America took it’s place as global superpower. Dishonorable military discharges, police brutality, public outings in local media and loss of government employment to name a few became a daily part homosexual life. Meeting places had been frequently stormed by cops leading to arrest (a phenomena that was increased during local elections), exposure as a deviant, loss of ones job, home and possibly family. The gay community was used as a political punching bag. It was through the homophile organizations that those who experienced these acts were able to realize that these experiences were a common thread in all “queer” lives. This realization would motivate many gays and lesbians to take more critical notice of their situation.

Through this impromptu community building that occurred before the war, homophile organizations like the Mattachine Society, which would be followed by ONE and the Daughters of Bilitis, came in to being. These groups provided the first space for homosexual’s mostly gay men, to meet others like themselves and seriously discuss issues that touched one another’s lives. This conciseness raising helped overcome the feeling still shared by so many gays and lesbians that they were stood alone.

Often discussions that took place at these group meetings were centered on topics like ”What to do with these effeminate queens and these stalking butches who are giving us a bad name?” feeding into a self fulfilling prophecy of disrespect and apathy. As the post war anti-gay climate grew, these discussions gradually became more focused on the treatment of homosexuals and how to resolve the issue of discrimination that existed in psychology texts, employment, and law to name a few. Ultimately what developed was an atmosphere of self -hate and the eventual structure of a self perpetuated hierarchy of power similar to the one responsible for homosexual oppression.

This self-loathing was a reaction to the simultaneous forces of growth and suppression acting upon the gay community as it continued to grow and struggle to define itself in a changing world. The challenge of being the voice for a growing number of people was not easily met and the homophile movement began to fracture as those who felt their voices were ignored began to form their own groups. As time passed and membership in these new groups expanded, the voices of the varied community were better able to represent the growing diversity within the gay movement that so echoed the plight of other minority groups across the country.

Inspired by the early African American civil rights actions, gays and lesbians wanted to deal with more immediate concerns such as what to do if one were lose their job or how to change unfair laws. Homosexuals were increasingly ready to take action. For the first time thanks to the Kinsey report, there was common knowledge of just how many homosexuals existed in the U.S. Unfortunately, rather then those large numbers of people coming together the movement had started to divide into more specific organizations such as the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) and Gay Activist Alliance (GAA) . The rift within the gay community continued to grow. Jean O’Leary says” How could I work to exclude transvestites and at the same time criticize the feminist who were doing their best…to exclude lesbians” as lesbians, influenced by the blossoming feminist movement started to feel that gay men drove the Homophile movement and ignored lesbians issues entirely. As Morty Manford puts it “In the early years of the GAA’s activism, there was an awful lot of resentment from other gays over our tactics and at our openness.” These splinters of the community would eventually create their own niche in the movement.

The movement for gay rights also took inspiration from the popular movement against the “Viet Nam war”. It is important to acknowledge that this was during the heat of the Vietnamese war. The atmosphere of the time was increasingly one of self-expression and public protest against all that was perceived as unjust.

It was the push and pull of these external as well as internal forces that would lead to the desperate frustration evidenced in Greenwich Village in June 1969, the mentality that this community had had enough and were willing to set the example for future generations who would keep the movement moving that there was no excuse for such oppression.

The struggle for gay rights, the rights of all are still pertinent today. Their needs to be an effort made at understanding between the oppressed groups in an effort to work together and bring an end to the inequality that still persist. Until this is done Stonewall will only be the beginning and the end will remain just out of reach.


Eric Marcus, Making Gay History (New York: Harper Collins, 2002), 23
Chris Bull, Come Out Fighting (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press,2001),25
Eric Marcus, Making Gay History (New York: Harper Collins, 2002),
Ibid,156
Ibid, 55
Eric Marcus, Making Gay History (New York: Harper Collins, 2005), 149