Some GLF members grew increasingly frustrated with the organization’s focus on militarism, racism, and sexism as well as LGBT rights and in 1970 formed the Gay Activist Alliance, which focused exclusively only on LGBT issues. GLF also believe that assimilation wasn’t the answer and that in order to gain rights, LGBT had to take to the streets. GLF believed that patriarchy and sexism were the root cause of the disenfranchisement of people in the States. Cells, modeled after the Mattachine Society structure, were formed all throughout the country. GLF, who often called for LGBT people to come “out of the closet and into the streets,” had no bylaws or formal leadership. They believed that together, they “could work to restructure American society.” The GLF organized same-sex dances, demonstrations and worked to include gay issues within the social movements of the Black Panthers and populist organizations. They were the first LGBT organization to use the word “gay” and aligned themselves with other civil rights groups like the Black Panthers and anti-war organizations. On the third night of the Stonewall rebellion, thirty-seven men and women founded the Gay Liberation Front (GLF), a more vocal and daring organization. Soon after Stonewall, a new wave of gay rights organizations, such as the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) were formed in response to what was thought of as ineffective, more subdued, protests by groups like Mattachine Society and Daughters of Bilitis. The rebellion, which lasted six days, marked the beginning of the modern LGBT rights movement.
As word spread, more LGBT people from surrounded neighborhoods joined the riot. The altercation spilled into the streets and more queer street youth joined in the uprising. There were reports of stilettos, bottles, coins, bricks and debris thrown. But that particular time, the drag queens and street youth fought back. However, on the morning of June 28, 1969, instead of the usual command, the NYPD First District raided the bar. Bar management was often tipped off when the local police district planned a raid on the bar and would warn LGBT patrons by turning on the lights. To enter, bar goers paid a $3 cover and signed a register (often with a fictitious or humorous name). One establishment where LGBT patrons found refuge was the mob-run Stonewall Inn. Transgender people were openly arrested on the streets. Queer patrons were often entrapped by plain clothes police officers, posing as regular bar patrons.
Section 722, Subsection 8 of the New York State Penal Code made it an offense to “solicit men for the purpose of committing a crime against nature.” Again, it was argued that homosexuality was an act against nature. The code barred premises from becoming “disorderly houses.” Many, including the courts, considered homosexual patrons to be disorderly.Īnd, in establishments where LGBT patrons were served, they could not touch each other while they danced. Establishments often cited Section 106, Subsection 6 of the New York State Penal Code to refuse service to queer patrons. Arrests, harassment and instances of entrapment by police were frequent. LGBT people were subjected to civil laws that criminalized sodomy and, in New York City, allowed bars to refuse service to LGBT patrons. And lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people grew increasingly intolerant of continued harassment and arrests by police. King to stand against discrimination and disempowerment were being heard. Race dynamics were compounded by continued disenfranchisement of African-Americans, bubbling the rise of the Black Panthers and calls by Louis Farrakhan and Dr. Tensions boiled as the population tired of U.S. The 1960’s were a heightened time for human and civil rights issues in the United States. The six-day riot, which began inside of the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City, was the breaking point of years of tensions between police and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender street youth and pedestrians. The Stonewall Rebellion of 1969 is widely considered the beginning of the modern LGBT rights movement. This brief history of the Stonewall Riots explores the angst by LGBT young adults and police entrapment that led up to the riots and the early activism and marches that ensued throughout the country: LGBT Angst and Police Entrapment June of 2009 marks the 40th anniversary of the protests at Stonewall Inn. The history of the gay rights movement can be traced to the Stonewall Inn in New York’s Greenwich Village, which is considered by many to be the launch of the modern gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights movement.
A Brief History of Stonewall and the Gay Rights Movement