Stonewall Uprising: A Portrait of Radical Queers
by Andy Hartman, thirdcoastdigest.com
April 22nd 2011
See Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZUZKtko4R0
History is a form of validation; how we assess the past determines how we
perceive ourselves in the present. Without a history we are lost and wandering,
perpetually grasping at events or occurrences for meaning and identity. This
concept rings especially true when considering the history of queer culture in
America. Its numerous gaps and fractured nature make it difficult to apprehend
— and shows exactly why its reclamation is so important.
It is through this lens that the documentary Stonewall Uprising tells the story
of the celebrated riots which sparked the beginning of the gay rights movement
in New York City’s Greenwich Village in June 1969. The film was screened last
week at UWM as part of the LGBT Film and Video series and was followed by a
panel discussion in preparation for its April 25 premiere on PBS’s American
Experience.
The film tries to situate the riots within an historical context, but Stonewall
strangely resists being placed inside the larger narrative of American civil
rights. Not quite belonging to any single movement, Stonewall’s catalysts and
significance are varied and difficult to isolate. Accordingly, the film simply
allows those who were there to speak for themselves. In presenting an oral
history of the uprising, the film truly shines — first-hand accounts of drag
queens battering down doors with a parking meter or setting police cars ablaze
in response to unrelenting raids on gay bars are stand-out moments.
Stonewall Uprising gives the audience an easy-to-understand background of the
America which made this violence possible. It passionately details the
inextricable ties of homosexuality with the medical institution, outlining the
various “cures” for the “homosexual problem,” including a notorious compound in
Atascadero, CA which one of the subjects refers to as “Dachau for queers.” It
was here that queers in the 50’s and 60’s were sterilized, experimented upon
and lobotomized.
Unsettling, outlandish clips from vintage news segments warning the public
about the threat of homosexuality are peppered throughout the film, showing how
heavily the country was being policed for “unnatural sex acts.” One was
ridiculously titled “Boys Beware.” To add further context, the film opens by
telling the audience that in 1969, homosexuality was illegal in every state
except Illinois.
With no laws for protection, and represented only by a very cautious early gay
rights movement, queers saw themselves aligned more with the in-your-face,
abrasive tactics used by the civil rights, women’s rights and anti-war
movements. These different avenues of rebellion allowed pre-Stonewall queers to
vent their anger and frustration, and it is the convergence of these avenues
that Stonewall Uprising sees as the true impetus for the riots.
Many in the audience at last week’s screening were teenaged Milwaukeeans in the
late 60s, and could personally attest to its impact during the panel
discussion. News of Stonewall was reported here, but only as a footnote –
something of minor importance that people didn’t quite understand. Many
professed to first hearing about the uprising via Time Magazine’s October 31,
1969 issue The Homosexual in America. One audience member remarked, ”Before
that, people didn’t even know how to talk about [gayness].”
Milwaukeeans’ tentative approach to notions of sexual difference is
crystallized in the story told by one audience member, who recalled a very
early proto-Pride march in 1971, where fifty members of Gay People’s Union (a
gay rights organization founded in Milwaukee during the 1970’s) marched to the
courthouse. However, once they realized cameras were waiting for them, the
entire group turned around for fear of being shown on the news.
These individual experiences, provided by both the audience and the panel, gave
a personal touch to the task of understanding Stonewall. Jan Warren, panel
member and co-chair of Connexus, a program which fosters African-American LGBT
leadership, recalls her time spent on Milwaukee’s South Side. Her friends were
“highly scrutinized in [gay] men’s bars.” Because of her skin color and her
sex, Warren felt she needed to “achieve the right to be gay.”
But just as Stonewall changed the conversation about homosexuality in America,
it also changed the landscape in Milwaukee. Warren said the uprisings
highlighted their “similarities in the fight to be accepted as human beings.”
Bryce Smith, a transgender historian, placed emphasis on the participation of
trans people in Stonewall, saying that it was a “brief moment in time that
showed gay could encompass everyone simultaneously.”
Cheryl Kader, a senior Women’s and LGBT Studies lecturer at UWM rounded out the
panel with an academic tilt, calling attention to the fact that Stonewall
“matters not as history or nostalgia, but as discourse – as a way to understand
the meanings attached to sex and gender.” Stonewall “helped open a vision that
encompasses multiple sexuality and gender organizations.” It is largely due to
Stonewall that we are able to critique and investigate what queerness can mean.
Whichever way one understands the uprising, its legacy today is apparent. Pride
fests are organized every year around the time of Stonewall, and in 2009, New
York City started a tourism campaign inviting visitors to “join the rainbow
pilgrimage” for its 40th anniversary.
Through Stonewall, queers “discovered [a] power we didn’t even know we had.”
This power is evident in the closing shot of one subject’s recollection of New
York City’s first pride march. With tears in his eyes, he describes how “we
were ourselves for the first time.”
That sense of brazen, unified and public validation changed the lives of
countless Americans, and altered the course of history as we know it.
Stonewall Uprising premieres on PBS as part of the American Experience series
on Monday, April 25. For more information, click here.
Original Page:
http://thirdcoastdigest.com/2011/04/stonewall-uprising-a-portrait-of-radical-queers/
Shared from Read It Later
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Sixties-L" group.
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
[email protected].
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/sixties-l?hl=en.
