Stonewall Forever

We are here. We exist.

We have always existed.

We're going to fucking continue to exist.

I'm proud of my experience

as a black Afro-Latino transsexual male.

We should not be frightened,

having to pretend this is any other day.

Regardless of age, sexuality, gender, or race,

everyone should be standing with us.

Trans rights are human rights.

Yes.

And that rally --

that was put together in like five hours.

When I got to the protest and I saw all those people, like --

I was so -- I was at a loss for words

because there was just so much power.

There was so much passion.

I felt like they had my back.

I wouldn't be here, as I am right now,

if it wasn't for everyone who fought in the past.

I only first heard about Stonewall two years ago --

two years ago,

which makes me so angry because I should --

this should be taught.

-I don't know when I first heard about Stonewall,

but I think I always kind of heard about it

in conjunction with pride.

Pride isn't just about the parade

that I grew up going to as a younger person.

Pride was actually about a riot against the police.

So it was almost 50 years ago,

and it's amazing how the LGBT community

started fighting back against oppression and transphobia.

-Because of my privilege today, it's my job to educate myself

on the things that they did to make this possible.

You owe it to them to do that,

and it's part of what you have to do as a queer person today.

Smells good.

We're going to stop at these benches over here.

This was my bed.

This -- This was my living room.

So, this is where I came when I was 13 years old.

It was 1962, '63, you know,

and when I first hid here, I was so fucking scared.

This was Gay Alley.

We were all out here, all kids.

It would range from, like, 20 to maybe 30, 40, 50

lesbian and gay boys out here, drag queens, transsexuals.

I've definitely felt like I had a family,

which I never felt before.

The park was -- was safe.

The cops didn't come in and bother us that much.

Stepping outside the park was a big fucking difference.

Pre-Stonewall was cops...

cops, cops, cops.

You always had to be watching your back.

It was just random.

It was whoever's face they didn't like.

There was this kind of rite of humiliation.

They would have to fully humiliate you

before they could let you go.

-Sexual deviancy was the main charge,

but they'd tell us it was -- we didn't have

the three articles of female clothing on --

bra, panties -- what the fuck was the other third piece

and how did they know I didn't have that on?

-The accumulation of Stonewall was many years

of seeing the police just barge in places.

-Technically, they could arrest you

for exhibiting homosexual behavior in public,

and dancing with a person of the same sex,

especially a slow dance, would fit the bill.

We were not a protected class.

-It didn't matter how many times they'd beat us up.

It didn't matter how many times we'd go to jail.

Get out of the hospital, get out of jail,

and come right back to the same place again

because that was ours.

-It was really tough being a street queen on 42nd Street,

but in the Village, you thought, "Oh, it's okay.

We could hang out and not be bothered."

I felt comfortable in little sort of dirty, little places.

-You'd walk up Christopher Street,

and you knew every-fucking-body.

It was a lively neighborhood.

You know, the -- the West Village was, like...

gay, you know?

I'm going to use those words

because "queer" was a bad word back then.

It was "gay."

-I said, "Oh, wow. This is heaven.

There's other people like me."

There was a lot of transsexuals in this area.

Tourists would come down in their double-decker buses,

taking pictures because we were all dressed outrageously.

And we walked up and down Christopher Street,

and we weren't afraid because we were in numbers.

I started to grow here

because I was free.

-My best friend called me and told me,

"I found a gay bar, and they can --

they allow you to dance with men!"

That was the Stonewall.

Stonewall was -- you know,

it was always dark in there.

You had to feel your way around sometimes.

-The interior of the bar was horrific.

-I mean, they didn't have running water,

so no one ordered, if you knew --

no one ordered a drink in a glass,

but it was ours.

I mean, so who cared what it looked like?

-And it was always crowded, you know.

Always crowded.

Like, you'd see queer people outside,

but walking into the bars and seeing so many of us --

you know, it was like, yeah, you know -- like, was home.

-All places that were frequented by gay people

were much more diverse.

There weren't many bars, and we were all under siege.

It was a crowded Friday night,

but someone behind me mentioned something about a raid.

[ Indistinct shouting ]

They already -- they were taking the drag queens out.

-People were dragged from the bar

and were shoved into the paddy wagon.

-They were pushing this queen into a paddy wagon,

and I saw her heel come out and hit the cop's shoulder

and push him back.

He jumped in, and you could hear bone against metal.

Come on!

-Then he said, "Alright, you fags, you saw what you wanted.

The show's over. Now get the fuck out of here."

We went for him.

There was enough provocation in every section.

The riot was on.

-The police were there in massive numbers

'cause that's one of the first times

a gay/lesbian/bisexual/ transgender group

had ever fought back.

But you can only take so much shit --

do you know what I mean?

-The word started coming down into the park

that there was this altercation over near Stonewall.

We got up here. It was like hundreds of people already.

There was trans women.

There were lesbians. There were femmes.

There were drag queens.

There was white. There was black.

There was Asian.

Everybody was fucking out here.

It was a liberation, you know?

We felt empowered, like -- You know?

This is who we are.

We're not going any-fucking-where.

-And it just took a momentum of its own.

There was no leaders.

Nothing was planned, but everything went...

...amazingly in our favor.

-About 3:00, 4:00 in the morning,

they finally got streets cleared.

We went back to the park,

and we talked about it all fucking night.

Had no idea that it was going to blow up into,

you know...gay pride.

-Disturbances around the Stonewall

lasted for about three or four days.

I wish I could say that I had a crystal ball

and I thought this was going to be