Stonewall Forever

The video above, Stonewall Forever, is a short documentary from New York City’s LGBT Community Center. Directed by Ro Haber, it “brings together voices from over 50 years of the LGBTQ rights movement to explore queer activism before, during and after the Stonewall Riots.” It’s one of the most balanced documentaries I’ve seen.

Films like this make it easier for young LGBT+ people to learn their own history, and how they got to be as free as they are. I hope that it will also alert them to how fragile those freedoms are, how politicians can take it all away. Which is why it was so appropriate that the film begins with a rally protesting the current White House regime’s war on trans* people. If the regime remains in power, they won’t stop there.

As a veteran of the fight during the height of the Plague Years, I really want young LGBT+ youth to know what we did, how hard we fought, how much we won, and how much we lost. I want them to understand how vital it is that they continue the fight, that they never—ever—allow them to erase us, because certain people absolutely have that as their goal.

It all begins with knowing where we came from and how we got here.

Then, it’s time to get busy.

More of our history

There are so many untold stories about the pre-Stonewall days, and these two videos present some more of them. There also plenty of stories about what happened after Stonewall. Most of those sorts of stories, both pre-Stonewall and post-Stonewall, still haven’t been told. It’s important to document what we can.

The video above is about the pre-Stonewall years, as well as a bit about the first few years afterward. It includes about some eyewitness testimony about things I’ve only heard about as reported history, not as lived experience.

The video below is about the larger picture, starting with Stonewall and the ripples that spread out form that event. It mentions that Chicago had the USA’s first Gay Pride Parade, and I knew the main guy who’d helped organise that. Another Chicago colleague of mine is pictured in one of the photos of Mattachine Society protests. This provides me with a very personal connection to events that happened when I was far too young to know about, or understand, any of it.

Taken together, the two videos talk about the history of of those who made my own later activism possible, the people whose bravery and bravado led inevitably to the freedom I later had—and could work to expand. It’s no understatement to say that I will forever be in their debt.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it", as George Santayana put it. If we study our history we’ll not only avoid repeating it, we can also forge a better future. When I was young, most of my community's history was still well-hidden. One of the greatest changes over the past 50 years is that more and more that history is finally being revealed.

There are so many stories left to tell. We’d better get busy.

History of us

Friday, June 28 (Saturday NZ time) is the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion that launched the modern LGBT+ liberation movement. Like all events in recent history, not everything we “know” is necessarily true, and for a very good reason: When historical events happen we seldom know it at the time, so we can’t be expected to record every detail.

The video above from The New York Times talks about the history of the Stonewall Rebellion correcting some myths, rebutting others, and, ultimately, arriving at the obvious reality: There’s a lot we’ll never know for sure, but what we do know about the events that night is based on several sources—just like long term history.

The video also correctly points out that the first gay rights organisation in the world, The Scientific-Humanitarian Committee (German: Wissenschaftlich-humanitäres Komitee, WhK), was founded by Magnus Hirschfeld in May, 1897, in Berlin. The Nazis burned its library and shut it down in 1933.

What the video doesn’t say is that the oldest gay rights organisation in the USA, The Society for Human Rights, was founded in Chicago in 1924 by Henry Gerber, who learned about Hirschfeld’s work while serving in the occupying forces at the end of World War I. It only lasted a few months, ending after several of its members, including Gerber, were arrested.

The Mattachine Society was founded by Harry Hay in 1950. That was the movement that was the first gay activists group.

And all of that was before Stonewall—whatever that really was all about.

The video below looks at Stonewall through the eyes of LGBT+ seniors, and some of that they said directly contradicts what the first video said. Does that matter? I don’t think so, not really. Oral history is always fraught, of course, because people’s memories are imperfect.

When historical events happen we seldom know it at the time. But we can always remember the spirit—and how far we’ve come—and that’s what this week is all about.