June 1st

It's June 1st. I've thought for a long while about how to acknowledge this day. Rainbows and platitudes are not how this month came to be recognized by the U.S, and eventually worldwide, as Pride month. This began in an environment that doesn't look so different from the one we're in today. 54 years later. I'll give you a Cliff's Notes history lesson here.

In the 1950s and 60s, police raids on mafia-owned gay bars were commonplace. The FBI kept a list of known homosexuals, the locations they frequented, and lists of their friends. The U.S. Post Office kept a record of addresses where "material pertaining to homosexuality" was mailed. Routine police raids were a means to arrest gay men and women, shut down the businesses they frequented, and expose them in local newspapers. The goal was to rid cities of gay people completely. 

On June 28, 1969 a police raid at the Stonewall Inn (the only gay bar in NY that allowed men to dance together) pushed our community over the proverbial edge. The windows and doors of the Inn were barred, and 205 people were held inside. It was standard procedure to line up the patrons and have a female police officer take all customers dressed as women to the bathroom to verify their sex. Anyone caught dressing outside of their biological sex was arrested. That night those dressed as women refused to go with the officers. Male officers began to sexually assault the lesbians while "frisking" them. The male patrons began refusing to produce their IDs. 

When police began to escort patrons outside the bar and place them under arrest, a crowd formed. Police hit a handcuffed, butch-presenting woman in the head with a baton as she resisted. She looked at bystanders and asked "why don't you guys do something?" When she was picked up and thrown into a police van, violence broke out. What followed were days of spontaneous riots by a community that had had enough and were no longer willing to be abused without a word of resistance. The Stonewall riots sparked an entire civil rights movement, led by trans women of color Marsha Johnson and Sylvia Rivera. The George Floyd protests erupted in the same way - an organic, spontaneous protest against perpetual police harassment, violence, and social discrimination, which gave rise to the Black Lives Matter movement. 

The social landscape in front of me right now is not all that different from the one the Stonewall riots erupted in. It's disheartening and frightening. All these people wanted was to live their lives in peace; to not be abused, oppressed, humiliated, silenced and erased. The LGBTQIA+ community want the same thing today: to exist in a world that does not shame you for your very existence. There are a great many people in my life who will never consider what it is like to be othered in this way. People who will never understand the unique obstacles and challenges we face simply to live peaceful, normal lives. 

Annual marches to commemorate the riots gave way to parades, which gave way to festivals...Pride month/day exists for people who dream of living in peace, but have not been allowed to. For people who have to hide from society or else be threatened with eradication for not disappearing voluntarily. We were never asking for special treatment...only for full personhood. It seems it is still too much to ask, and that breaks my heart. But I will not be invisible. I will not pretend not to exist as the human that I am. I will never stop advocating for all people to be treated fairly and with dignity. I will never teach my children that anyone is beneath them. And if once a year, an anniversary of violent protests of opposition reminds us that we are human beings who deserve to be treated as such, then that is a time we will honor and observe forever. You don't have to get it. We do.