Stonewall at 50 (and the years thereafter)

Today's early morning hours marked the 50th anniversary of Stonewall, a riot of modest proportions outside a seedy mob-operated gay bar on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village that generally is viewed as the spark that set off the gay rights movement. The heroes were trans people, hustlers, street kids, poor folks of color --- an early rainbow coalition; their targets, police so accustomed to harassing "queers" that resistance had not been anticipated.

The New York Times published a piece yesterday headlined "The Night the Stonewall Inn Became a Proud Shrine" that's worth reading.

And then there was Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana, gay, married, a "family values" kind of guy and a viable candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination addressing America from a public debate stage on the eve of that anniversary. Who would have anticipated that?

If memory serves, I was engaged in basic training at Fort Polk, Louisiana, and therefore sound asleep on that long ago early summer night. It would be years before the significance of what was going on in New York City would become evident to me --- and to millions of others, gay and straight.

The Stonewall Inn still is there, part of the Stonewall National Historic Landmark that also includes Christopher Park and nearby streets, so declared during the progressive Obama administration. On Thursday, 50 trailblazers in the struggle for equality were honored during dedication of the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor (above) inside the Stonewall Inn. You'll find a list of the inaugural nominees here, at Wikipedia.

Personally, I'm grateful for them all. But of course the struggle goes on --- especially for trans people, and we're reminded almost daily of that at a time when the prevailing political power base has been built by those skilled at pandering to hate.

Three rules that have served me fairly well in the years since Stonewall: Never under any circumstance vote for or otherwise support in any way a Republican; carry an identification guide and anti-venom if you feel you must navigate the rocky desert trails of organized religion; and remember that while perhaps a third of your straight neighbors most likely are your friends, another third would watch you thrown under a bus with only minor regret and the remaining third would gladly do the throwing.