Writing Us Out Of History

I was going to write my Thursday “My Story” when I read a post on Facebook about an article on Bilerico about a NPR show…

NPR Re-Writes LGBT History Edition [What You Need To Know]
Filed By E. Winter Tashlin
January 23, 2013
[…]
The piece was ostensibly intended to provide background on the Stonewall Riots for people who may have been unfamiliar with the historic reference President Obama made during his second inaugural address. Unfortunately, Ms. Halloran's piece, which as of 4:30am EST Wednesday morning was top of NPR's "most shared" list, is one of the most blatant examples of what could only be considered trans* and non-conformist erasure I've ever seen.

How, one might wonder, is it possible to write an account of the Stonewall raid and subsequent uprising without any mention of the pivotal role played by drag queens and trans* women? As hard as it is to imagine, Ms. Halloran has done exactly that.

In fact, the only mention of drag found in the article is an assurance by Stonewall veteran Martin Duberman that the Stonewall Inn was not in fact "filled" with "drag queens and street hustlers." Equally disturbing, the piece explicitly states that "gay men resisted police harassment," despite the fact that the presence of trans* women among those fighting back that night, and throughout the days that followed, is an accepted part of the history of the Stonewall Riots.

What he was talking about is this…

Stonewall? Explaining Obama's Historic Gay-Rights Reference
NPR
by Liz Halloran
January 22, 2013

The Stonewall Inn, in Greenwich Village, was one of the few places where gay men, almost all necessarily closeted, could gather. It was an unlicensed establishment because, at the time, it was illegal to serve alcoholic beverages to gay people.
Ms. Halloran goes on to say…
The New York Daily News a few days later, in a story headlined "Homo Nest Raided, Queen Bees Are Stinging Mad," characterized the riot as exploding "with all the fury of a gay atomic bomb."

The rioting continued for five nights.

It wasn't the first time gay men had pushed back, said [Martin] Duberman, who earned his doctorate at Harvard, taught at Princeton and Yale, and as a distinguished professor at the City University of New York founded the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies.

Gay men in San Francisco had already been protesting their treatment at the hands of police. But, for whatever reason, he said, "Stonewall somehow became the symbol for all of this."

From the Stonewall uprising came activists groups, gay-rights organizations, and in 1970, the first Gay Pride marches in New York and other major American cities on the anniversary of the first night of the riots.

The article mentions that there was an article in the New York Daily News July 6, 1969 paper about the uprising , here is what the article had to say about Stonewall…

Last weekend the queens had turned commandos and stood bra strap to bra strap against an invasion of the helmeted Tactical Patrol Force. The elite police squad had shut down one of their private gay clubs, the Stonewall Inn at 57 Christopher St., in the heart of a three-block homosexual community in Greenwich Village. Queen Power reared its bleached blonde head in revolt. New York City experienced its first homosexual riot. "We may have lost the battle, sweets, but the war is far from over," lisped an unofficial lady-in-waiting from the court of the Queens.

Hmm… “the queens had turned commandos” compared to what Ms. Halloran and Mr. Duberman wrote, “It wasn't the first time gay men had pushed back.” It seems we lost something in the telling… the “Queens.”

The NY Daily News goes on to say,

The crowd began to get out of hand, eye witnesses said. Then, without warning, Queen Power exploded with all the fury of a gay atomic bomb. Queens, princesses and ladies-in-waiting began hurling anything they could get their polished, manicured fingernails on. Bobby pins, compacts, curlers, lipstick tubes and other femme fatale missiles were flying in the direction of the cops. The war was on. The lilies of the valley had become carnivorous jungle plants.
[…]
The police are sure of one thing. They haven't heard the last from the Girls of Christopher Street.

In an article in the 1998 Workers World by Leslie Feinberg of an interview with Sylvia Rivera a trans-woman who was actually at the Stonewall Uprising, Ms. Rivera said…

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.

The Stonewall uprising involved the entire LGBT community, gays, lesbian, bisexuals and transgender people were all there. Some argue that when they say “Gays” that they mean the entire LGBT community, but that writes out of history three quarters of the people that were there and also in the article the authors say specifically “gay men.” The other argument is that back then everyone was lumped under the “Gay umbrella” that trans-people didn’t have their own identity yet and that is true, but when you write articles about it now that is no excuse.

The Ms. Halloran wrote that “From the Stonewall uprising came activists groups, gay-rights organizations, and in 1970, the first Gay Pride marches…” many of those groups kicked out any gay, lesbian and especially trans-people who did not blend into society. Sylvia Rivera was one of the founders of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) and she was kicked out because she didn't pass as a straight man, she was what we now would call queer and she was proud of it.

One last point, many of people involved in Stonewall were Latino or black. Sylvia Rivera was Latino and Miss Majors is black and they too are being written out of history as it becomes gay and white.

You might want to read “Still at the back of the bus”: Sylvia Rivera’s struggle by Jessi Gan