Revisionist History Part II

Last month I wrote about a Metroline editorial about the Stonewall Uprising and the editorial said that, “There were no drag queens there at all. It was gay human beings simply standing up for being who they were.” This month they published a reply to the outcry from the trans-community and they lambasted the trans-community. The editor DaBrow writes in this month’s editorial…

While I hope with every breath that all of you will read with an open mind and glean some new understanding, I am not a fool. I know there is a segment that will not be able to budge from their positions or opinions no matter how short sighted or closed minded they may be. And the true pity here is that this very stubbornness is exactly what we fight against on all fronts. The refusal of people to understand anything they can't, or in my opinion, don't want to understand. Neither I nor Metroline have any agenda other than furthering the cause of the community towards equality. We are not phobic about anything or anyone no matter how many self-appointed demagogues claim otherwise. But I will address that further in my article. My statement was meant to give respect and remembrance to ALL members of the community that have given so much towards what we enjoy today.

Metroline then devoted a large portion of the magazine to defending their position. In the article “That Fateful Night...” DaBrow writes, “

Specific splintered groups weren't a fraction as important then as today, according to many people I have spoken with who were there. Hence my reference to the "gay human beings simply standing up for being who they were." My statement was meant to be inclusive of everyone in the community. Nothing else. Human beings tired of the oppression which prevented them from being the individuals God meant them to be.

The statement “There were no drag queens there at all.” to me does not leave much room to argue that he meant to include the whole LGBT community, if he meant to say that he could have worded it differently. As the editor of the newspaper, he should have a good grasp of the English language and wrote something like “We were neither gay, nor lesbian, nor bisexuals nor transgender that night, but all human beings fighting for our rights”. To me his excuse sounds like the same excuse that Joe Solmonese said about his speech at Southern Comfort last year that he “misspoke.”

DaBrow then goes on and writes…

This is the wrong way to deal with any issue of difference or with another person. Jerimarie Liesegang has attacked me without attempting to fully understand what I truly meant. I am further frustrated that she has accused this magazine and all the good people involved with it of being phobic and exclusive to segments of the community. She seems oblivious to the fact that many of these very men and women over the years who have worked so diligently for the cause in this magazine were in fact some of the actual people fighting that fight in the sixties. I wonder if she can even list all of the names of people involved back then, not just selected excerpts. We can list those names because our founding staff members were there and personally knew most all of them.

As I said before I thought the same thing as her when I read the article and I know that a great number of trans-people came away from reading the article feeling the same way I did. As the Editor he shouldn't have to say what he meant, he should have written it clearly in the first place. I think that if DaBrows actually contacted Jerimarie he would be surprised with who she actually know. Did the staff members know Sylvia Rivera, Marsha P. Johnson, Daria Modon, Miss Major, China Fucito, and Storme DeLarverie?

DaBrow further writes…

In my statement I was referencing that first night. And what I said was factual. The myth about flaming drag queens (NOT transvestites) antagonizing the police into a fight simply is not true. That first night was when the tempest in the teapot boiled over and everyone there took a stand. TOGETHER, as gay human beings standing up for who they were. No one who was actually there has ever been reported to have been engaged in a turf war of any kind at that time. Why do you have to do it now?

This is the account of Sylvia Rivera as told to Leslie Feinberg in the Worker’s World…

It was street gay people from the Village out front-homeless people who lived in the park in Sheridan Square outside the bar-and then drag queens behind them and everybody behind us. The Stonewall Inn telephone lines were cut and they were left in the dark.

One Village Voice reporter was in the bar at that time. And according to the archives of the Village Voice, he was handed a gun from Inspector Pine and told, "We got to fight our way out of there."

This was after one Molotov cocktail was thrown and we were ramming the door of the Stonewall bar with an uprooted parking meter. So they were ready to come out shooting that night.

Finally the Tactical Police Force showed up after 45 minutes. A lot of people forget that for 45 minutes we had them trapped in there.

That is a very different account from what DaBrow’s wrote and I believe Sylvia Rivera more than DaBrow. He then goes on chastising the trans-community…

If the trans community is so outraged at being excluded from the community by Metroline or anyone, why did this organization feel a need to have a separate pride celebration? Why didn't they include themselves in a more visual manner at any of the other pride celebrations around the State with an eye towards educating a larger segment of our community?

Maybe it is because of people like DaBrow, Barney Frank and Joe Solmonese who keep on trying to marginalize the trans-community by writing us out of our history that we feel the need to speak for ourselves .

In another article by the Joshua O'Connell, called “Language Can Be Such a Drag!” he writes…

Ms. Liesegang responded: "History clearly reveals that Transgender people (Drag Queens and Transvestites in the 1969 vernacular) were visibly prominent and active in the Stonewall Rebellion and to state that 'there were no drag queens there at all' is pure Transphobia and inflammatory!"

I respect the efforts Ms. Liesegang is making to ensure equality for those who are transgendered. However, I must disagree with her assertion that the statement is transphobic.

There is a distinct difference between drag queens and transvestites. Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a drag queen as "a male homosexual who dresses as a woman especially for comic or theatrical effect." They state the use of it dates back to the 1940s. This makes sense. Think back to Milton Berle and the Texaco Star Theater (if you can; at my age I've just seen reruns). He dressed in drag fairly routinely, and was very funny when he did it. It was one of the things that kept him popular for decades.

…

This is why I disagree with Ms. Liesegang. As Metroline's designer, I saw the article before it went to press, and I did not come away with Ms. Liesegang's interpretation. Here's what I took away from it. The people there fighting (the first night, this detail must be stressed, as it was presented in the editor's letter) were not in outrageous outfits trying to incite the police. They were, as Joe said, human beings. Transgender people should be treated the same way as a gay, lesbian, bisexual or straight person should be treated - with respect. They didn't want to be harassed by the police just because of who they were. Drag queens, coming from all parts of the community, get that respect from falling into the aforementioned categories.

I disagree with him that there were no “Drag Queens” as cited above in the interview with Sylvia Rivera. In the accounts of the Stonewall Uprising that I have read, the articles told of the drag queens congregating at the Stonewall Inn after the drag shows closed for the night.

In a fourth article in Metroline entitled, “Truth, Injustice, & the Homo Way” by Matt Surface he writes…

…I have never seen such outrageous jumping to conclusions. I'm still trying to figure out how people interpreted a statement about drag queens to be anti-lesbian (I personally have never met a lesbian drag queen but if there is one out there please drop me a line at the magazine so I can interview you for an upcoming issue).

I guess he has never heard of “Drag Kings” nor the group “All the King’s Men”? He then goes on and writes…

Now I fully expect that Metroline will get a whole bunch of e-mails complaining about this article but before you waste the electrons I just want to point out two things - first we have in this country a little thing called Freedom Of Speech and therefore I am entitled to express my opinion, and second before you waste your time demanding that Metroline fire me - as a freelance writer, I don't actually work for Metroline, so there.

True, but the press also has a duty to report the news without distorting the facts. By not doing so you bring down the quality and reputation of the newspaper.