Stonewall Inn Riots

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“In that bar no one was ever sure whether or not he or she would end the night by being arrested and thrown in jail,” recalls historian and frequent visitor of the Stonewall Inn, Martin Duberman (Frank, 2014). The conflict that occurred on June 28th, 1969, is known by many as a critical event that has shaped the LGBTQ+ liberation movement. When police officers raided Stonewall Inn, a known bar home to the queer community of Greenwich Village, New York, they were met with a force and backlash they had not expected from the bar patrons. The reaction sent waves through New York that would eventually spread to the rest of the world. When analyzing Stonewall, it is important to know that the riot that happened in June of 1969 was not the first riot …show more content…

A few of these themes include the importance of sexual orientation and race/ethnicity of providers, feeling the environment was hostile/inconsiderate to the participants and their experiences being queer, and concern for the certification of a provider in LGBTQ+ care (LaVaccare, 2018). Intersectional analysis is an important eye-opener when studying queer liberation progress because it points out the weak areas. It is a reminder that, although there has been significant progress in the recognition of the LGBTQ+ community, there are still severely underrepresented groups that need better treatment.. The Stonewall Riots marked a shift in how society recognized and responded to the LGBTQ+ movement. What happened on those final days in June, 1969, was not necessarily the first time something like that happened–it was what happened after that that made such an impact. Elizabeth Armstrong and Suzanna Crage explain this in their journal article, Movements and Memory: The Making of the Stonewall Myth: “Timing mattered: while Stonewall was not the first riot, Stonewall activists were the first to claim to be first’’ (Armstrong & Crage, …show more content…

Many face microaggressions from the LGBTQ+ community for being non-white, while also facing homonegativity from their racial and ethnic groups for being non-heterosexual. It is far easier to see how the Stonewall riots have helped the queer youth of today in being open and expressive advocates for LGBTQ+ liberation, rather than seeing who still faces harsher oppression and judgment for being queer. However, it is crucial that queer people of color gain more recognition and support within their own communities, so they can be more widely acknowledged and accepted by those outside of their communities. The Stonewall riots of June 1969, while not the first of uprisings, marked a pivotal moment in the LGBTQ+ liberation movement by fueling major shifts in society’s recognition and response to the queer community, despite not fully addressing the needs and experiences of all marginalized groups within it. Further research into the phenomenon of Stonewall highlights how crucial the context of the events were to explain their

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