Original Stonewaller Fred Sargeant calls for new GLB Movement

Is this your response to your last anti-trans hatred thread failing OP?

F&F.

Good for him.

I agree that there’s no reclaiming HRC and GLAAD, which is why i have to laugh at the pro-trans loon on two other current threads on DL, who said if we’re that concerned we should work to change GLAAD instead of bitching on Datalounge. Yeah, it’s just that simple.

Totally agree!

Live interview with Fred Sargeant.

Sargeant is a self-loathing nutjob cop. He's always saying things like cops killing suspects is "a good thing," and has been more than happy to lend his alleged cred to the anti trans movement. He's very right wing. I occasionally see a tweet of his that makes me think he posts here.

Former cop. That explains a lot. He's an asshole.

He's not wrong

If I keep shitposting how much I hate XXXXX, everybody else will too! 600 more threads to go!

He sounds like a bigot.

You mean the same Tony McDade that stabbed someone to death R6, made a video that he wanted to die from suicide by cop, then pointed his gun at a police officer and was shot to death, THAT tony mcdade r6?

Off topic a bit, but I was just listening to Jim Fouratt's account of what really down at Stonewall. It was so great to hear the first hand account. Really engaging guy.

(Spoiler: It's wasn't trans POC who started it all)

Exactly R12 - you not “anti-trans” or “racist” just because you are in favor of actual historical truth regarding what happened at Stonewall. And what actually happened at Stonewall was, like so many historical events, not really all that much by itself - it is what happened AFTER Stonewall, in all the years and decades and work by all the the different types and kinds of people it took to achieve true liberation that is important,

I honestly don’t know what makes Stonewall so important, other than it was the only action that anyone seems to remember. There had been gay marches against police violence and pickets in front of The White House for employment rights long before Stonewall but just because it was in New York the national press decided it was important to cover and now it’s all most people know about.

It was the first that got national attention but it was not the genesis of the gay liberation movement.

R13, this Jim guy was really funny about it. He said that drag queens, were of course, a part of the movement, But that Stonewall was NOT a drag bar. It had mafia roots and a big Italian bouncer who did not let just anyone in. Ridiculous to think that drag queens (trans or not) would even be there.

He went on to say that the truth is so much more interesting than whatever fictional narrative people wish happened.

R14 - read the article OP linked to - it answers some of your questions - a lot of it was a generational shift in how to deal with the opression. Immediately after the events Stonewall did NOT get much mainstream press coverage - just some snide paragraphs in the Daily News and the Times about “Queen Bees” getting in a snit. (And “queen” didn’t refer to Trans Women of Color - it was a way to say “fags” in print). Again it is what happened in the years later, starting with the March the next year, that turned Stonewall into an origin myth. Humans LOVE simplified narratives, it’s how we’re psychologically wired.

Thiis gent’s blog is a really fascinating first person narrative about gay life in nyc from 58 - the 90s. Don’t let the dated formatting put you off, he’s a great writer - I spent days reading the whole thing during the pandemic (thanks to another thread on DL mentioning it). He discusses Stonewall at length.

Good - I agree with him. Somebody has to to stop this madness and rewriting of history.

And so what if he was a former cop?

Fred has balls. He tells it like it is, and doesn't suffer fools. Trans maniacs and Stonewall history revisionists keep getting his Twitter account suspended. How truthphobic of them.

This time I think it's permanent. I hope I'm wrong.

I've been interested in finding the new GLB movement myself, particularly a space for gay men. What I've found is that despite being squeezed out of the alphabet soup and erased at alarming rates, most gay men seem too comfortable with the current status quo and too scared of being labeled twansphwobic to pull their heads out of the sand. I haven't found much in the way of organized resistance but there are whatsapp groups and facebook groups and zoom meetings that I take part in and I think that's where the nucleus of the new G is forming. In places like DL too!

Instead of splintering apart, wouldn't it be smarter for all the sexual minorities to band together? Gays share more in common with trans than with breeders (discrimination, bashing, AIDS...).

Trans is not a sexual orientation. Most of them are actually straight calling themselves "queer" or so hopelessly self-hating that they think they become straight by transing. Gender identity has nothing to do with homosexuality. The word is homosexual, not homogender. It's not about presentation, but true Eros. In the trans ideology there is no biological sex, and thus no homosexuality, everyone is fluid. That is why it's intrinsically homophobic.

"Original Stonewaller "

That's one way of putting it.

Thank you, R11, for the FACTS and REALITY. Two things that are foreign to trans.

You can fuck off, R5/ R6/R7/R10. You cannot possibly be gay. Most likely self loathing and oozing.

Good for him.

He is very wrong. Basically what he is saying is he wants a WHITE glb movment.

That’s right! No more alphabet soup! We are sick and tired of the antics!

His new "GLB Movement" isn't a real, registered organization. But they are happy to take your money!

They’ll get there, R28. Have a little hope!

GLB Box 6969 Grand Central Station, NY

R14 - what makes Stonewall seem so important is that it happened in the USA. Plenty of other countries had people already working on making life better for lesbians and gay men (homosexuals if you must) and had been doing so since the 19th century. Lots of other groups were defying the police and their harassment of lesbians and gay men.

If Pink News is against this guy he must be great. Just listen to this car crash interview with the Benjamin Cohen. (Another right-wing gay for the record, big fan of the Conservative Party).

R31 - I don't understand - Benjamin Cohen is the founder of PinkNews, so of course they're going to be against the interviewer?

I'm not sure I get your post.

Good for him, gays not having the balls to speak up and or claiming that not being inclusive of straight women and straight men in our community is phobic is just pathetic.

Demon:

[quote]Instead of splintering apart, wouldn't it be smarter for all the sexual minorities to band together? Gays share more in common with trans than with breeders (discrimination, bashing, AIDS...).

No. The trans might need us, but we most certainly do not need them.

[quote] He is very wrong. Basically what he is saying is he wants a WHITE glb movment.

How is he “very wrong”? Specifics? Why do you think he wants it to be whites-only?

[quote] Off topic a bit, but I was just listening to Jim Fouratt's account of what really down at Stonewall. It was so great to hear the first hand account. Really engaging guy.

Link to this, please? I would love to listen.

"LGB" looks better than "GLB". "GLB" looks as though it should be pronounced "glib".

How about no acronyms?

Yeah, how about we just go with “gay”? Covers both men and women.

No more letters. An emphasis on words should make a comeback.

R34, yes a straight male demon who married a straight female. ~ Eye roll ~

R21 But transgender in not a sexual orientation or so we’re constantly being told. It has nothing whatsoever to do with sexual gratification, right?

Also, a good many trans people describe themselves as heterosexual. Why should they be included in a movement meant to advance the rights of gay men and lesbians?

Jim Fouratt's become a bit nutty over the years, but a more sane actual Stonewall witness is 'Philadelphia Gay News' Publisher Mark Segal. He's a functional illiterate in his Editorials, but had good proofreaders for his memoir.

We could just form the Ancient Mystical Society of No Homers. Only Gays and Lesbians are allowed. Maybe Bis and Asexuals. They don't have guaranteed admission though.

Everyone else is a Homer, and only one is allowed to join. All others are rejected.

R32 - sorry I meant Pink News are against Fred Sargeant.

I loved the part in the BBC interview when the presenter told Cohen off for assuming there was no possibility he wasn't trans.

R17 Thanks for the link to the "Not in Kansas" blogger....he's really great! Very interesting and informative.

I like how he goes after Martin Duberman's terrible Stonewall book.

And, how Stonewall really WASN'T a big deal....it was just one incident in a series of incidents. Really, the raid on The Snake Pit in March of 1970 and Diego Vinales' impalement trying to escape the police station was a far bigger catalyst in the whole movement towards the establishment of Gay Pride.

[quote] GLB Box 6969 Grand Central Station, NY

Tippi, may we have a zip code for this? My contribution was returned by the post office for lack of a zip code.

R45, I agree that the response to Snake Pit catalyzed a lot of preceding incidents. But it gave fuel to the commemoration of Stonewall, which ultimately became Pride. The gay rights movement was a lot of small pieces that came together by good and bad fortune less than design.

Diego Vinales survived the impalement and seems to have disappeared from history.

Huh?

Could you elaborate on your last sentence, r47?

No, I really can’t. All i can find is that he recovered and moved back to Argentina. He jumped out of the window more for fear of immigration violations more than the shame of being arrested for being in a gay bar. Who knows how history might have gone if he had just stayed at home that night?

Has Marsha P. Johnson commented yet?

That may be the case r16 but that still doesn't explain why Stonewall has been so over-inflated, as though gay people all over the world wouldn't exist or have rights if it wasn't for that event. Same with Pride.

I suspect that the real reason Stonewall has become so over-hyped - and this is really only a very recent event, of the past decade or less - is so that the new-style of "LGBTQ++" "activists" can manipulate it to entrench their positions of power with the new revisionist version of Stonewall history, namely the fake narrative that it was started by transwomen of colour. Same with Pride, which also fits with a simplistic social media culture.

That said, it's still great to hear a more accurate version of what happened from someone who was actually there, rather than the politically driven revisionist fake history we're getting.

R44, Benjamin Cohen doesn't realise that he inadvertently admitted that gays and trans are two different categories of people and neither can speak for the other (although he would probably only allow that "cis" people can't speak for "trans" people, while trans are the only ones qualified to speak for the whole "LGBQT++").

By saying that he and Simon Fanshawe, as "cis" gay men, cannot speak on behalf of trans people, he's revealing that there is no common gay and trans movement. If gays can't speak for trans, then we should split up and have our own LGB community and they can have their own separate trans community.

Just like I don't represent trans people, they don't represent me.

[quote]Has Marsha P. Johnson commented yet?

Glub. Glub. Glub. Glub. Glub Glub.

How's your little heroine Magdalen doing, r50? Oh, still dead? Such a shame that she had a brain tumor that I'm sure did not manifest itself as disordered thinking or inappropriate outbursts of hate and anger AT ALL.

Fuck you, OP.

Your "source" is a conservative rag run by a Tory anti-trans lunatic named David Bridle, who has run the Boyz.com site for many years, which retweets hate shit from the "LGC Alliance."

You divisive lunatics are so trans-parent. Enough of your constant crap and how you insert it here.

You and your right-wing agenda do not fit here or in actual gay life. You're just trying to serve your little hate agenda.

And sitting for 20 minutes W&W'ing yourself 32 times proves nothing except your disorder, OP, you asshole.

No one's made up fake stories about Magdalen though r54, whereas there is an endless stream of lies about how Marsha (aka Malcolm) single-handedly/along with Sylvia started the Stonewall riots, laid the foundation stone for Gay Pride, fought for and won same-sex (sorry, is that term permitted?) marriage, etc., etc.

And it's not "hate" to point out that men are not women.

OP's source, r55, is someone who was actually at Stonewall.

That’s what they do, R58. They dismiss accurate, historical accounts as “right wing”.

I think what's so telling and offensive is that there aren't a lot of people from the riots or the first parades standing up and saying 'yes, I did this, give me credit' - even though many of them are still alive or were alive decades after Stonewall.

The reason? They know it was a collective effort and that no one person started or kicked things off.

Marsha was a known personality in the Village - but she also got more noticed when she died 'mysteriously' in 92. Sylvia was always trying to grab the mic - literally.

If MPJ were alive today, I'm pretty sure she would correct and downplay all this mythology that has developed over the years. Sylvia would just milk it for all it is worth and keep telling lies like the junkie she was.

How anyone can take credit for a movement is beyond ridiculous, particularly in cities and countries where no one had ever heard of these two individuals.

Many of them aren't alive, though. AIDS wiped out most of our Stonewall history. That's kind of basic Stonewall 101 knowledge.

Include that Storme as well, R60. Storme milked it and her story changed a few times.

R61 - well Fred Sargant and Ellen Broidy are still alive. I get your point, but not every gay man died in the AIDS crisis. Of course, by now many have died of natural causes.

The subtext of promoting MJP and Sylvia Rivera is that white gays and lesbians were somehow behind a campaign to marginalize them and keep their voices silent. Basically, the gay rights movement was a racist and transphobic.

No it fucking was not.

Respectability politics was a huge part of the early gay rights movement, and that did indeed put trans people, as well as sex workers, the flamboyantly gay, the leatherboys, and all sorts of subgroups at the margins of the movement.

This is a really excellent perspective from a lesbian about the effects of respectability politics on the relationship between gays and lesbians during the early days of the gay rights movement.

[quote]Homophiles—a group of homosexuals who tended to be male, middle class, and white—sought to neutralize those aspects of homosexuality that were deemed culturally unacceptable, and in so doing further marginalized many queer peoples. This essay demonstrates how homophiles attempted to disassociate themselves from their lower class, gender-nonconforming, non-white, sexually non-normative peers, in order to assimilate into Cold War society as rights-bearing American citizens.

Best and truest line in the story:

"We haven’t left them, they’ve left us.”

R64 - or, they are very small niche groups who wanted a disproportionate voice in the movement to get attention.

The goal was gay rights - not leather rights, sex worker rights, etc. - which all could benefit from. You want to 95% of the gay population to get around and promote a small group or look at the bigger goal?

You can't take up every cause - it waters down your effort. And, at the time, yes - the vast majority of US were white and middle class. The US was a lot less diverse than what it is today.

And if you think respectability politics doesn't get the job done, you're wrong.

It's not the leather daddies and street hustlers who changed America's stance on homosexuality. It was the regular folk that people got to know IRL and on TV.

These groups ARE on the margins - they weren't 'put there' by some dastardly plan.

I see Reeeees McKinnon/ Dr Pleasant Peanut Veronica Ivy himself has crawled out of obscurity to grace us with his presence at r54

R21. Most trans women are white straight men with cross dressing fetish taken to the extreme. They may get breast implants but they NEVER get their dicks chopped off, because they like fucking women. Many seem to become sex pests in terms of harassing lesbian women for sex.

These autogynophiles are fetishists and have no place in the LGB community.

I thought, r64/r65, that the whole point about the Stonewall riot is that it was the first major fightback that didn't care about respectability and radicalised the gay rights movement. There is no attempt to marginalise "trans people, as well as sex workers, the flamboyantly gay, the leatherboys, and all sorts of subgroups" from Stonewall - they just weren't there in their multitudes. Really, they weren't, and they've never been the majority of the gay community. "Trans" is a relatively new concept which has little to do with the transvestites of the Stonewall era.

[quote]Most trans women are white straight men with cross dressing fetish taken to the extreme.

Is there data to back this up?

Right r66, because a contemporary trans historian who is specifically attempting to "queer" the past would not be biased in any way at all, would they?

[quote]My dream is to research the histories of queer communities in Aotearoa, trans communities especially, as I am trans myself! I'm also a trustee of Te Pūranga Takatāpui o Aotearoa | the Lesbian and Gay Archives of New Zealand, and through this I have committed to finding ways to share our queer histories and archiving with our communities, especially our youth. I often do talks and workshops on these subjects, and am happy to talk to any community group or school that would be interested!

Here's your "historian", r66.

[quote]Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, trans people in Aotearoa New Zealand resisted cisgender hegemony in numerous ways. This thesis aims to explore three key methods of trans resistance practiced during the period between 1967 and 1989 – community building, trans pride, and normalising trans. This study reveals that trans community building was the essential first step for the budding trans movement, yet maintains that there was never one single trans 'community’ and that each trans community practiced different and sometimes contradictory politics. Just as it was necessary to feel pride in one’s trans self in order to have no shame in connecting to trans others, so too was it necessary to challenge cisgender hegemony and advocate for trans people. This study examines the various ways trans people embodied ‘pride’, refusing to bow to shame on stages as large as the nation’s highest courts to as common as the everyday encounter on the street. The role of trans people in sex worker, gay liberation and homosexual law reform movements is also considered, as is the way trans politics reflected changes on the broader political landscape. Finally, this thesis takes a critical view of attempts made to normalise transness. In the fight for trans rights, some communities practiced a politics of transnormativity and respectability; they attempted to make themselves more respectable by further marginalising those trans communities which were already marginal. This thesis aims to spotlight the disciplining power of race, class, sexuality and gender, determining which bodies mattered and which did not.

Yes, that historian sure looks like an oppressed trans person of color.

Or is it a white woman in glasses who uses a male name - Will Hanson?

R51 - the Stonewall thing isn't that recent. There was the (tv?) movie in 1995, the one directed by Nigel Finch.

I agree R52 - I don't think any should be seen as speaking for all lesbians, all gay men, all bisexuals or all trans people. How can they? Who nominated them?

I certainly can't speak for the experiences of all gay men. I can only speak about my own life and make assumptions of common ground and common experiences. At a trivial level it can be an inane as "all gay men like divas" or "all lesbians own cats"...but when it comes to politics and world view you're never ever going to find a single topic all LGBT people agree on. It's as ridiculous as thinking all straight people think alike.

R55

You keep accusing people of being “trolls” and/or right wing. Do you not understand that some people simply have a different opinion to you? Disagreeing with someone or with something is not trolling.

I believe all people, straight, lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans deserve equal treatment and legal protections. But (you knew there was going to be a but didn’t you?) you, and people like you, are not helping bringing people around to a decent, sensible way of thinking because you never engage like adults. Shouting people down, "cancelling" them and calling them names is the behaviour of the school playground, not adult discourse.

Sure Stonewall was known about and respected in the gay community before 10 years ago r77, but in the past decade or so it's been hyper-inflated into some kind of foundational moment of a putative global LGBTIA++ community and has been appropriated by certain groups in very ideological and controlling ways.

Prior to the past decade this story about Stonewall having been started by transwomen of colour didn't exist.

[quote]Stonewall having been started by transwomen of colour didn't exist.

Trans barely existed too.

Good find, r76. Looks like Harry Potter! Looking super-masc in this pic.

[quote] it was the first major fightback that didn't care about respectability and radicalised the gay rights movement.

Don't tell that to SF transeez, who will parrot the increasingly padded tale of the diner fracas at Compton's Cafeteria. Any Bay Area SJW will tell you the entire block where that shabby diner was should be bronzed!

Someone should be a drag queen named Myth Maker.

[quote] I see Reeeees McKinnon/ Dr Pleasant Peanut Veronica Ivy himself has crawled out of obscurity to grace us with his presence at [R54]

You beat me to it. Wonder how the husband's ped case is going?

R83 - what are you two talking about? Veronica Ivy - I know that's Rachel McKinnon's new 'name'. What's the pedo case?

his partner that he lived with was arrested as a pedo. Just glitter family things.

Respectability politics is just a way to inflate the influence of a very small minority while also shaming the majority. In any group, the big middle is the core and the big middle is made up of people that fit that "respectability" definition because they are the ones who define it by being the huge majority. The minority factions in any group are, of course, the outsiders. Identifying them as the minority, whoever, is no excluding them. They just don't get to run the show as if they were the majority. And, boy, does that piss most of them off!

[quote] Most trans women are white straight men with cross dressing fetish taken to the extreme.

[quote] Is there data to back this up?

All you need are eyes, sweetie.

Well, kween—the ones I know come from extreme religious backgrounds, like ex-gays. Gays marry women too. Maybe I just don’t know the right transpeople. Still waiting on that link.

So, the "Trans Agenda" hyper promoting the "Trans Women of Color led Stonewall and created LGBTQ Pride" narrative is inaccurate and ridiculous but so is the other dreary narrative that the radical fringe accomplished nothing and it was all respectable white men and a dyke or two doing the heavy lifting is also a load of bullshit.

Nice, middle class white men don't riot or protest or "Act-Up"....it tends to be the very young, the lower class and the marginalized. It's the Stonewalls, the Comptons, The White Nights and the Act Up protests that make the Establishment nervous and grab headlines and move the narrative forward, not 40 year old bank managers who can afford a summer share on Fire Island. It's those punk queer as fuck street kids we see in Fred McDarrah's photos from the 2nd night of Stonewall.

The thing is, by over inflating Marsha and Sylvia, they do them a disservice because they were both radical voices in the Gay Rights Movement and especially for sex workers and the trans community. They don't need to be on some false pedestal; they're worthy of being in the pantheon. They just don't really need to be in the big gallery with the biggest statues. The Queer Rights Movement isn't just one person or a couple of persons....it was thousands of people who made the difference.

[quote]The thing is, by over inflating Marsha and Sylvia, they do them a disservice because they were both radical voices in the Gay Rights Movement and especially for sex workers and the trans community.

Neither Marsha nor Sylvia were "trans."

They were men who wore makeup and women's clothes sometimes. They were gay drag queens. Gay men.

R90 Oh, you were personal friends of Sylvia and Marsha?

Tell us more of their lives which you seem to know so much of!!!!

You're an unhinged freak, R91.

I know that.

R92 Oh! Do we know each other?

Are you that funny little man who lives next to my dumpster?

[quote] Nice, middle class white men don't riot or protest or "Act-Up"...

The majority of ACT UP members were just that. I was one of them.

Despite Sarah Schulman's dismissive blather in her new book, ACT UP (NY, at least) was mostly middle-class gay white men.

^ Sarah Schulman isn't worth listening to. She's a time-server: because it's fashionable to amplify certain groups, that's what she's going to do.

R53, you are awful but I love you! Come sit with me.

R91, in interview clips on YT, both Marsha and Silvia talked about themselves as gay men and transvestites.

In 1969, I don't think very many people used the term 'transgender', which had only been coined in 1965 by a doctor...as a replacement for the word "transsexual", as someone who goes through the surgery.

The idea of non-surgeried individuals calling themselves transgender is completely post Stonewall.

R89, you're wrong - Stonewall was a radical act but it had practically nothing to do with trans women of colour, "queers" (as if gays called themselves that in the late 60s or it meant then what some are trying to make it mean now) or punk street kids. It was primarily gay men, and primarily white gay men.

You're also confusing fighting back when it's needed with the boring conventional political work that's required to get laws changed.

Every time someone tries to correct the trans community on social media, they get silenced. It's pretty irritating.

It's one thing to assume that (a) the dozen drag queens arrested at Stonewall and (b) the two more legendary and outspoken drag queens who showed up later should be labeled trans (we have no evidence that these men in dresses today would identify as women or seek out surgery/hormones - we just don't know).

Then it's another thing altogether to declare that these drag queens actually 'started the gay rights movement' by 'throwing the first brick'.

There are many leaps in logic here, and it's all done in the name of boosting trans activism and respect. Trans folk have a lot to be proud of, especially in the monumental leaps they've made in recent years, but Stonewall isn't theirs or even theirs alone.

Sargeant makes an interesting point in the interview linked at R4. The fight for rights for same sex attracted individuals has nothing to do with the fight for transgender rights. Trans rights is not a homosexual campaign at all.

Sargeant also says that the "T" was added out of a sense of charity, but that he feels that it's slowed down the progress for homosexual rights.

R89 Read up on the Mattachine Society and other pre-Stonewall gay orgs. It was respectable white folks that started the narrative.

[quote] I loved the part in the BBC interview when the presenter told Cohen off for assuming there was no possibility he wasn't trans.

This sentence makes my head hurt.

For whoever asked, here is an article about the % of AGPs. In 2010 it was around 75% according to an expert that has been canceled but was the go-to expert at John Hopkins. Most info on AGPs has been scrubbed from the internet

It’s too bad that Mattachine is now, to most young gays, just an occasional party that John Cameron Mitchell throws.

The pro-trans lunatic is going to become apoplectic when he sees that Quillette has been linked in this thread.

Just block that troll R91.

Whether people like it or not, it's a combination of 'respectable' people and the radicals that bring about change. The 'respectable' (there must be a better word than that) people speak the language politicians understand. Can you imagine Sylvia or Marsha rocking up to the White House to discuss gay rights? But there's a reason why, in Britain, Ian McKellan, representing Stonewall, was invited to 10 Downing Street. He was 'respectable', he was articulate, he was establishment...British politicians would relate to that. Rightly or wrongly, that invitation was never going to go to Peter Tatchell or members of the Sisters Of Perpetual Indulgence dressed as nuns...

The radicals get the publicity and draw people's attention to things, but it's the 'respectable' people, the ones who do the hard grafting and get changes made to laws. And all too often you don't know who they are because they're not necessarily in it for the personal, publicity, the fame, the social media likes or whatever, they're doing it because it's the right thing to do.

The supposedly TERF Fred Sargeant actually gives one of the best, most vibrant accounts of Marsha at Stonewall:

[quote]I saw behind the lines of protestors Marsha P. Johnson emptying a bag of trash over the windshield of a police car.

[quote] was the go-to expert at John Hopkins.

Did he know how to spell it correctly?

R97 You're an idiot.

I never said black trans women led the "fight" at Stonewall. In fact, I said quite the opposite. (Marsha showed up after it started; Sylvia wasn't even there).

And, yeah, most of the rioting was done by the queer street kids. Who do you think was running around for five nights breaking windows and tearing up shit? 35 year old school teachers and sales clerks? Fuckin' kids are the ones who run riot IN a riot....no one else has the energy or craziness to do that shit.

Pretty much every eyewitness account of Stonewall is about the KIDS running around doing most of the rioting.

Won’t someone please think of the kids?!

Would gays really be identifying as "queers" in 1969, r109? How many gay street kids where there if it was solely them keeping the whole thing going? Kids just means young people, I'm sure they weren't all school age.

You yourself may not believe that Stonewall was started by trans women of colour, but that's the narrative being pushed today, and "queering" Stonewall in a way that it never was enables that narrative.

From eyewitness accounts, R111, gay men did call themselves all kinds of things, queers, fairies, pansies. The ownership of slurs goes way back for us. That's not to say that I agree with the new trans-poc retroactive narrative. I'm quite disappointed by it, as I've said in other posts here.

R111 - I'm not R109, and I in no way believe Stonewall was started by "traswomen of color," but as per the first person narrative at the Not Kansas blog Stonewall was a pretty sketchy dive bar, on the lower end of what was available; and the crowd it attracted was more "street" than "respectable middle class." Remember the drinking age back then was 18 -- and even in the early 80's before it became 21 most of us NYC kids started drinking around 14 and getting in to bars with fake IDs at 16, as long as you looked reasonably old enough (straight and gay kids.) And while there were mostly a somewhat older, mostly white clientele IN the bar when the actual raid took place, the ensuing riots over the next few nights attracted more of the street-kid / runaway & "marginal groups" crowd as it went on.

Here's one of the best-known photos from the Stonewall riots. I'm not familiar enough with the styles of the era to say whether these were radical queer street kids or not. They just seem like average gay people to me, young but not necessarily under 18.

It's kinda pathetic that so little is known about what happened on those nights, which has allowed some with an agenda to make up their own events. Someone should have done an oral history of Stonewall years ago.

Another well-known photo supposedly from the Stonewall riots, although these guys don't really look like they're rioting. Again, aside from a couple of queeny characters at the front, to my 2021 eye, they look like average gays.

Another pic of the same groups as in the pic at r115. This looks more like it was taken after the riots.

Who are these people and where did they go?

[quote]"Fred W. McDarrah (deceased 2007) was the first picture editor and only staff photographer at The Village Voice for decades. He photographed the artists, writers, musicians, and actors who frequented the bars, theaters, art galleries, and cafes in Greenwich Village. He documented political rallies, gay rights, feminism, and the anti-war movement."A print made and donated by McDarrah and purchased buy the seller at a fundraiser at a Greenwich Village Gallery in the 1980s, this photograph is signed and titled on the plate "Weekend of Stonewall Riots, June 27, 1969". It was originally published on the front Page of the Village Voice. The image is of a group of young gay and transsexual men, standing boldly in front of McDarrah's camera in front of the boarded up Stonewall Inn, where the riot, and the modern Gay Rights Movement began.

BBC revisionist history. No one considered themselves a "transgender person" back then. It's also questionable how many lesbians, runaway teenagers and drag queens there were. Most of the 200 were gay men. (Yes, as Fred says, Storme was there, but the gay scene was not one big "LGBTQ community": gay men went to bars to meet gay men, lesbians went to their places to meet lesbians.)

[quote]About 200 customers - lesbians, gay men, transgender people, runaway teenagers and drag queens - were thrown out on to Christopher Street.

The Not Kansas blog also points out that there were a number of gay men who just wore make up. They called them "slap queens".

I used to do this as a white gay boy in the 80s myself. It was fun, I looked good (I thought), and I in no way felt like a woman. I was a boy trying on some looks and to feel more confident and mess with people a bit. I imagine that's what was at Stonewall, not as many full on draq queens, even. Some were probably slap queens, and are being lumped in to this trans narrative.

The first photo at link is also apparently from the Stonewall riots. The men are all conventional looking men and the banner says "Stop attacks on lesbians and gays".

This site is still completely revisionist. I've noticed this attempt to claim that the riot started because the police were doing gender ID on the cross-dressers - the cross-dressers that there is no evidence were there.

[quote]One particular raid at Stonewall Inn did not go as easily as the police had expected. On the evening of June 28, 1969, instead of peacefully lining up for gender-identification and arrest, the patrons began to resist. Cross-dressing males refused to have their gender identity checked; patrons in line refused to present any identification at all.

Blurry pic but gives a good impression of the crowd. Young men but not kids, conventional looking, mostly white.

As Fred mentions, R120, the first night was mostly men. The second night was mostly lesbians. So that photo looks to be from the first night.

It was Marsha and Sylvia and no one else on both nights.

I got an email plea for donations from Planned Parenthood and it highlighted Marcia P. Johnson.

PP email in pertinent part:

[quote] . . . we've also seen the power of resistance — built on the history, contributions, and legacies of LGBTQ+ people of color. It's crucial that we honor those who came before us and continue to build a better future together. The LGBTQ+ movement that we have today was sparked by transgender women of color like Marsha P. Johnson, Zazu Nova, and a courageous group of LGBTQ+ people who pushed back against state‑sanctioned police violence in 1969 during the Stonewall Riots. From their courageous efforts, we've learned that long‑lasting social change often comes from solidarity and protest, and we carry that with us in our fights today.

Fuck Planned Parenthood

Who the fuck is Zazu Nova? Is this a new fake trans superhero?

[quote] Who the fuck is Zazu Nova?

Didn’t he run against Estes Kefauver in the ‘50s?

Does anyone know the name of the writer of the 'Not-Kansas' blog?

Is it somewhere in there and I can't find it?

It's fascinating reading and with some editing would make a great long-form article.

He does supply an email address so I could do the obvious thing and just ask him.

Planned Parenthood, the place that was formed to help low income women get healthcare. Fuck the T. This is all going to backfire on them but we (women, gays, and lesbians) are going to be in the fucking kill zone.

Wow. Some really stupid pedantic people on this thread.

"Kids" doesn't mean 12 year olds. The people in the famed McDarrah photos are all YOUNG people in their late teens/early 20s. If you don't think they're "kids", then you're an idiot.

Several photos posted on this thread aren't from Stonewall, especially at R120. There are very, very few photos from the 5 nights of Stonewall and the majority of them were taken by Fred McDarrah who mostly shot on the 2nd day. Frequently, photos from White Night in San Francisco and even photos from the Village protests over the filming of "Cruising" are identified as being from Stonewall when they're not. Both those riots did skew older but those events both took place 8 to 10 years after Stonewall.

I love to use the word "queer" because so many silly old queens have a conniption over it. I can picture them frothing at the mouth as they angrily type a rebuttal.

Pay attention, bitches, R129 speaks from his YEAR of experience!

[quote] I love to use the word "queer" because so many silly old queens have a conniption over it.

You sound like a lot of fun to be around.

I don't know of any gay people who have an issue with the word queer.

Plus, who the hell thinks street kids means adolescents??

Aside from the helpful background about Stonewall photos, R129, I think the rest is in your head dear.

Plenty of gay people have an issue with the word queer, especially as it is used today. It is no longer a "take back the slur" thing. It is now an erase the words gay and/or lesbian from the world by trying to put everyone under some "queer" umbrella that includes trans, nonbinaries, agenders, or whatever new term they've made up in the last few hours.

I see. Your experience is that older gay men are revolted by being lumped in with the nouveaux definition of it? That's interesting.

R134, older and educated gays and lesbians who know history and recognize reality. I'm really not sure how anyone cannot see it being used as erasure of gay and lesbian as identities in the world. It's happening. This isn't the "We're here. We're queer. Get used to it." use of the word. As I said above, it is the umbrella term now to minimize gay experience in the world and replace is with some nebulous, all-encompassing term that is ultimately completely meaningless. I mean, there are now straight people who identify as 'queer'. Talk about fucking meaningless.

Queer as an umbrella term is way better than the Alphabet Soup thing.

Also: queer is a better word than the awful word "gay" which is just so....gay.

The vast majority of posters on Datalounge don't agree with you R136 - myself included.

The word "queer" is an offensive, violent and hateful slur to most of us - no matter how much you stamp your feet and shriek at us because we won't all get in line and do what you say.

We are gay - NOT queer.

R137 Sweetie, you're hilarious.

You accuse me of stamping my feet then manage to actually indicate you're the one stamping your feet in anger with the wording of your post.

LOL.

I'm not angry at all R138.

I'm just deathly bored. By you.

Queer now includes fetishes, enbies, sex workers, straight people who have blue hair, posers, body piercings and are non binary but look obviously male or female. In other words it has no meaning and puts LGB’s in with freaks like stefonknee and poser idiots like jameela jamil.

That ‘Hankering for History’ site has to be written by a very young and ignorant person.

R139 WELL!

That told me off!

(exits room in a huff, clutching pearls in a fist clenched with anger and osteoporosis)

[quote] LOL

R138 what hellish backwater are you in where people still use "LOL"?

R143, tell Muriel to give us emoticons.

Are those like hashtagging?

R129, I posted the pic at r120. I wasn't sure whether that photo actually was from Stonewall and was going to comment on that, but I saw it being attributed to Stonewall on several sites so just left it. The repeated wrong attribution, however, simply underlines what a mess the writing of the history of Stonewall is, which has enabled its exploitation and revisionism.

I don't froth at the mouth at the word "queer". I just think "what an idiot" and "what a meaningless word, even straight people call themselves queer".

It's a bit ironic you trying to needle the oldies when you think people in their late teens/early 20s are "kids". Most people on any scene are in their late teens/early 20s. There's nothing extraordinary about people at Stonewall being around that age (mostly 20s rather than late teens).

It's a bit strange that Fred W. McDarrah didn't take any photos of trans women of colour at Stonewall (or anywhere) considering Stonewall would never have happened if it hadn't been for the stunning and brave trans women of colour.

He was Prince Edward, r49. His first name was Edward and that was always what he was known as officially. One of his many middle names was David and that was apparently what those close to him called him, but his actual name was Edward and before he was King Edward he was Prince Edward.

[quote]Who the fuck is Zazu Nova?

The delightful transgender sidekick on "The Gale Storm Show."

You can use emojis, what more do you want, R144

😝🤢🤟🤟🏻🤟🏼🤟🏽🤟🏾🤟🏿👊🍆💦🐵🙈🙉

I don't mind the word queer at all. In fact, I like it.

What I do mind is someone using (and benefitting from) it who merely kissed a girl once in college or can't decide what gender they are that day or is "questioning" - whatever the hell that means.

If it's used as substitute word to help describe the gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans experience? Cool. But not someone who's just weird or wants to frolic in the gay field without being, you know, gay.

It would be like me saying I'm black because I love the NBA or got fucked by a man of color. It's ridiculous.

Oh, look; a factual history of Stonewall and the early Pride marches that doesn't even mention M_____ or S_____!

Stormé gets some credit, though.

R133 R135. - I love your take on this. Nailed it! “Queer” is just used as a means of gay/lesbian erasure.

He was assaulted. At Pride. By violent TRAs. Absolutely disgusting.

Amd of course no reporting of it locally (that I have seen). disgusting.

Omg

Look at all the redtags!

R90 is Gap Playlist's old account. He posts as being pro trans on his new account, which is curious since he was anti-trans until he finally got the ol' permaban.