What Life Was Like for Gay Amerins Before Stonewall

Contents:

• 'THEY BEAT YOU WH THEIR BATON': A VETERAN OF THE STONEWALL RTS AND THE FIRST PRI MARCH SHAR WHAT LIFE WAS LIKE FOR GAY AMERINS BEFORE THE UPRISG
• GAY RIGHTS BEFORE STONEWALL
• RISHI SUNAK APOLOGIS TO LGBT VETERANS FOR PAST ARMED FORC GAY BAN
• GAY MONUMENT THE HAGUE VANDALIZED WH ANTI-GAY GRAFFI
• THE STONEWALL RTS DIDN’T START THE GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT

'THEY BEAT YOU WH THEIR BATON': A VETERAN OF THE STONEWALL RTS AND THE FIRST PRI MARCH SHAR WHAT LIFE WAS LIKE FOR GAY AMERINS BEFORE THE UPRISG

1965: Philalphia – Dewey’s Rtrant S-InDewey's rtrant Philalphia, Pennsylvania as appeared May April 25, 1965, the 17th Street lotn of Dewey’s rtrant Philalphia nied service to approximately 150 people who appeared to be gay or genr non-nformg. McDarrah/Getty ImagAfter pourg their drks, a bartenr Juli's Bar ref to serve John Timms, Dick Lesch, Craig Rodwell, and Randy Wicker, members of the Mattache Society who were prottg New York liquor laws that prevented servg gay ctomers, 1966. In a letter to Hirschfeld, she said: "It is a tragedy, I feel, that people of a different sexual type are ught a world which shows so ltle unrstandg for homosexuals and is so crassly different to the var gradatns and variatns of genr and their great signifince life.

GAY RIGHTS BEFORE STONEWALL

Amelia Earhart and openly gay reporter Lorena Hickok are jt two of the women wh whom former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt was mored to have had closeted affairs, the latter wh whom she exchanged more than 3, 300 letters over a 30-year perd; Roosevelt and Hickok allegedly began an affair om 1932 to 1938. What began as a safe space for women to meet whout the risk of police raids at gay bars quickly morphed to a full-blown polil anizatn that created other polil offshoots cludg The Ladr—the first natnally distributed lbian publitn—which enuraged women to "take off their masks.

Her discharge om the ary over her homosexualy had turned her to an Tob/The New York Public LibraryPublished July 19, 2023Updated July 23, 2023Lilli Vcenz, who beme a gay rights activist the hhed, reprsive era before the Stonewall rebelln of 1969, when such a ncept srcely existed, makg a mark as a newspaper edor, documentary filmmaker and psychotherapist voted to L. Vicenz beme, by most acunts, the first lbian to picket the Whe Hoe support of equal rights for gay people as a member of the Mattache Society of Washgton, an early gay rights prott — the first of s kd, acrdg to the Library of Congrs — and others that followed were small but brought visibily to a movement s fancy. Vcenz beme the first out lbian to appear on the ver of a natnal gay magaze, The Ladr, a publitn produced by the untry’s first lbian-rights group, the Dghters of Bilis, acrdg to a retrospective on her life and reer by Lillian Farman, a historian of lbian and gay her scbbed, all-Amerin looks, Dr.

Vcenz looked like “every mother’s dream dghter, ” as Barbara Gtgs, The Ladr’s edor, put Vcenz also ntributed to the e on the other si of a mera, makg two 16-limeter films that were later hailed as signifint artifacts of the early gay rights first, tled “The Send-Largt Mory, ” documents a Mattache Society prott ont of Inpennce Hall Philalphia on July 4, morn ey, the black-and-whe film, roughly seven mut, seems anythg but seismic.

RISHI SUNAK APOLOGIS TO LGBT VETERANS FOR PAST ARMED FORC GAY BAN

"If you had told me s ago that the gay liberatn movement would get to this pot, where we'd go om beg arrted, evicted, fired om our jobs for beg gay to now the Supreme Court lg we n't be discrimated agast at work, I wouldn't believe you! In the Tim, John Harwood ntrasted the black and femist movements whose history go back long before the Civil War wh “the morn fight for gay rights” which he believ is “ls than a half-century old, datg om the 1969 Stonewall uprisg  New York. Image source, Emma RileyImage ptn, Rad operator Emma Riley was discharged om the Navy for beg a lbian the 1990sRishi Sunak has apologised for the historil treatment of LGBT veterans who were sacked or forced out of the ary for beg PM lled the ban an "appallg failure" of the Brish was illegal to be gay the Brish ary until 2000 - wh thoands of veterans thought to be affected.

GAY MONUMENT THE HAGUE VANDALIZED WH ANTI-GAY GRAFFI

Acrdg to the report, the Mistry of Defence said at the time that jtifitn for the policy clud "matenance of operatnal effectivens and efficiency" - but the report said there had been an "prehensible policy of homophobic bigotry" the armed forc.

It heard shockg acunts of homophobia, bullyg, blackmail, sexual asslts, "disgraceful" medil examatns, and nversn mak 49 remendatns to the ernment cludg:Affected veterans to be given an "appropriate fancial reward" pped at £50m overallThe rtoratn of medals that had to be hand back on dismissal or dischargeThe clarifitn of pensn rights The prentatn of a special veterans' badgeThe ernment said would rpond full after summer of the veterans affected watched the PM's public of them, Emma Riley, 51, was a Royal Navy rad operator for three years before she was arrted and discharged for beg a lbian after tellg a lleague her sexualy the early told BBC News she weled the report, and hoped would be put to place "swiftly. "Olympian Dame Kelly Holm, who served the army and me out as gay last year, lled the publitn of the report a "historic moment", while Cathere Dixon, a former army officer who is now vice chair at Stonewall, said was "an important step towards jtice" for those whose ary reers were "ed" bee of their sexualy. Many still have a crimal rerd to this also tails how some veterans faced a plete loss of e, while others were emed eligible to claim their pensn bee of their report more than 20 years after four servicemen and women, who were sacked for beg gay, won a se the European Court of Human Rights and overturned the armed forc chary Royal Brish Legn lled on the ernment to accept the report's remendatns chary's director general Charl Byrne weled both the report and Mr Sunak's "landmark apology", sayg many people who had dited their liv to the untry were "forced or felt prsured to leave the armed forc, and this mistreatment stroyed or shortened their reer".

In April, a group of about 20 adults attacked a buildg where a group of gay teens were meetg, beatg up a volunteer workg wh the teens and attemptg to set fire to a rabow flag hangg om the buildg’s exterr while shoutg anti-gay slurs. Now that the Stonewall Inn is the Uned Stat' first natnal monument to LGBT rights, we look at how the muny fought agast raids, harassment, and discrimatory June 28, 1969, police raid the Stonewall Inn, attackg s gay and transgenr ctomers (a mon practice at the time).

THE STONEWALL RTS DIDN’T START THE GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT

Today, his apartment is a natnal historic ’ In 1966, the New York Cy chapter of the Mattache Society—a gay rights anizatn—cid to challenge the New York Liquor Authory’s regulatn agast servg alhol to gay people (police often ed this as a pretext to raid LGBT bars). “I hope that out of all the attentn beg given to Stonewall on this 50th anniversary that people learn that Stonewall was not the start of the LGBTQ civil rights movement — that was a key turng pot, ” Eric Marc, creator of the award-wng “Makg Gay History” podst, told NBC adms that for a while even he didn’t know there was a gay rights movement before Stonewall, but when he started rearchg, documentg and archivg the liv of lbian, gay, bisexual and transgenr people around the unty, he “me to disver that there was a 19-year history prr to Stonewall.

So they reached out to soclogists, lawyers, judg and scientific rearchers, hopg to nvce people to help them dispel the prevailg myths that stigmatized gay the early days of the Mattache Society and the Dghters of Bilis, “ was assumed that gay people were mentally ill, ” Marc said. And some of the groups joed of those who beme gay rights activists, Chncey said, “had been volved the antiwar movement, the femist movement, the New Left Black Power, and they brought the ance of those movements and the radil analysis that those movements were velopg to gay polics.

But there were pickets, protts—even rts— the years before June 28, 2019 marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall rts, when a raid on a New York Cy gay bar led to rto prott by people fed up wh beg harassed, discrimated agast and jailed simply for who they were or who they the 1960s, New York Cy stepped up efforts to close gay bars and entrap homosexual men.

Army Buildg at 39 Whehall Street Downtown New York, which had been an Armed Forc Examatn and Entrance Statn sce group, led by Randy Wicker and members of the Sexual Freedom League, monstrated agast the ary's discrimatory polici and the outg of homosexual men rejected for would be 47 years before the U. Other ECHO monstratns that sprg took place ont of the Pentagon and the State May 21, Armed Forc Day, 35 people walked a send picket le at the Whe Hoe, prottg the excln of homosexuals om the ary, the dishonorable discharg given to those who were disvered and the "ntug refal by the Departments of Defense, Army, Navy, and Air Force to meet wh spokmen for the homosexual muny to engage nstctive discsn of the polici and procr at issue. Four years before Stonewall, Frank Kameny, Barbara Gtgs and 38 other activists picketed outsi Philalphia's Inpennce Hall to mand equaly, what was the largt gay rights monstratn of s rried signs readg "No society n be great whout all of s cizens" and "15 ln homosexual Amerins ask for equaly, opportuny, digny.

To monstrate agast this discrimatory policy, members of the Mattache Society took a page om the civil rights movement: They walked to Juli' New York's Wt Village, announced they were homosexuals and asked to be bar had been raid a few days earlier, and a uniformed p was statned outsi the door.

They were met by squadrons of armed officers, but ntued their peaceful Black Cat raid and subsequent monstratns spired Richard Mch and Bill R to turn a lol gay rights newsletter to The Los Angel Advote, which soon beme The Advote, the natn's first natnal LGBT 2008, The Black Cat was signated as the first Los Angel Historic-Cultural Monument landmarked for s signifint role LGBT history.

But engagg gay behavr public (holdg hands, kissg or dancg wh someone of the same sex) was still illegal, so police harassment of gay bars ntued and many bars still operated whout liquor licens— part bee they were owned by the Rights Before StonewallThe first documented U. In 1966, three years before Stonewall, members of The Mattache Society, an anizatn dited to gay rights, staged a “sip-” where they openly clared their sexualy at taverns, darg staff to turn them away and sug tablishments who did. When The Commissn on Human Rights led that gay dividuals had the right to be served bars, police raids were temporarily Stonewall Inn The crime syndite saw prof terg to shunned gay clientele, and by the mid-1960s, the Genove crime fay ntrolled most Greenwich Village gay bars.

And was one of the few—if not the only—gay bar left that allowed were still a fact of life, but ually rpt ps would tip off Mafia-n bars before they occurred, allowg owners to stash the alhol (sold whout a liquor license) and hi other illegal activi.