Background: Research into the Events at the Stonewall Inn, NYC - 27/8 June 1969
Background
Clare B Dimyon MBE MSc (BEd)
At London PRIDE 2018 (8 July) there was a lesbian protest in which a group of eight-ten women sat down at the front of the parade and prevented the parade moving off. These events became national and international news and the BBC report 8 July 2018 'Pride in London sorry after anti-trans protest'
contained a link to the London PRIDE statement and quote a number of people condemning this disruption as 'transphobic'. Included in the London PRIDE statement was a quote from the President of EuroPRIDE stating that "The Pride movement was started by trans-people..."
This was followed rather rapidly by a BBC report on 9 July indicating that Brighton PRIDE, in my own city, 'promises robust action after protests' which interestingly repeated in exactly the same form as the EPOA statement, the claim that "The Pride movement was begun by trans-people..." as though it were an established fact. The more I looked for messages of hate and transphobia, the less I found and finally wrote a letter to both London & Brighton PRIDEs requesting evidence for such a statement. I have yet to receive a response by 2 June 2019.
The end of my PRIDE solidarity tour 2009 was the Slovak capital of Bratislava. The purpose of this tour was to 'rock up' at the Prides of central & eastern Europe and pay the local British embassy a visit to what they might be able to do to support LGBT+ people in that country. In Bratislava in 2009, courtesy of the British embassy, we watched the film 'Before Stonewall' with particular significance because there had never been a Slovak PRIDE, partly because Vienna is less than an hour away by train.
A memorable moment in the film was when a bunch of American 'queens' burst into 'God Save the queens' - a spoof on the British national anthem (hymn), which the British embassy certainly hadn't anticipated! A sequel to this film was made c1990 called 'After Stonewall' which also covered the events of Stonewall itself shown at a subsequent Slovak LGBT Film Festival. I can't remember in which film the events of Stonewall itself were covered but I had surprised me to learn that a lesbian had questioned the idea of just going along with the police raid and that it was with a question to the largely male 'bystanders' that it had dawned on those around her, that homosexual people didn't have to accept the status quo. That said, I as most LGBT+ people have heard the refrain "Everybody knows trans-people started Stonewall/Pride" in some form and at some level, I assumed that to be true. That said, I had never made that statement because I simply had not examined the evidence, so how could I say?
The other thing that was happening in the controversy and online furore were that American lesbians were robustly asserting that the claim that "Trans-people started Stonewall/Pride" simply wasn't true and they started posting links to articles about a woman called Stormé DeLarverie, suggesting that she was the lesbian woman who had in fact precipitated events at Stonewall. The Wikipedia page also seemed to have a range of sensible references including published books and so I read through &/ watched all the online material and... ordered the books. IF the statement that 'trans people started pride' was not true and it were being used to make a political point against lesbians, that had rather serious implications for the credibility of those making such statements and needed to be seriously investigated.
I happen to be a Quaker and that philosophy encourages us 'to search for truth'. Quaker children don't sing many songs but there is a merry little song about the Bible quoting an early Quaker "The Truth is more holy than a book to me!" It seemed worth digging down into this detail and taking a closer look.
A couple of years ago, I discovered I can be described as having alternate brain configuration 'High Functioning Aspergers... which would explain why I do rather forensically drill down into the detail. I am also an amateur Quaker historian and therefore well used to examining archival material. Thus began my search into the events of that Fri/Sat night of 27-8th June 1969 at the Stonewall Inn in New York City, whose findings I am detailing in this blog.
2 June 2019
Note 1: A professional Slovak translator asked me how 'LGBT' should be translated and I replied "With absolutely no Slovak to my name, I am not sure I am the best person to ask but in other countries I noticed it was translated by saying the letters "El-Ge-Be-Tee..". (I also met Keith Eddins from the US embassy, the same Keith Eddins who would turn up in Hillary Clinton's speech specifically for Slovak PRIDE-Bratislava in 2010, which was a rip-roaring success!).
Clare B Dimyon MBE MSc (BEd)
At London PRIDE 2018 (8 July) there was a lesbian protest in which a group of eight-ten women sat down at the front of the parade and prevented the parade moving off. These events became national and international news and the BBC report 8 July 2018 'Pride in London sorry after anti-trans protest'
contained a link to the London PRIDE statement and quote a number of people condemning this disruption as 'transphobic'. Included in the London PRIDE statement was a quote from the President of EuroPRIDE stating that "The Pride movement was started by trans-people..."
EPOA: "The Pride movement was started by trans-people..."
This was followed rather rapidly by a BBC report on 9 July indicating that Brighton PRIDE, in my own city, 'promises robust action after protests' which interestingly repeated in exactly the same form as the EPOA statement, the claim that "The Pride movement was begun by trans-people..." as though it were an established fact. The more I looked for messages of hate and transphobia, the less I found and finally wrote a letter to both London & Brighton PRIDEs requesting evidence for such a statement. I have yet to receive a response by 2 June 2019.
A memorable moment in the film was when a bunch of American 'queens' burst into 'God Save the queens' - a spoof on the British national anthem (hymn), which the British embassy certainly hadn't anticipated! A sequel to this film was made c1990 called 'After Stonewall' which also covered the events of Stonewall itself shown at a subsequent Slovak LGBT Film Festival. I can't remember in which film the events of Stonewall itself were covered but I had surprised me to learn that a lesbian had questioned the idea of just going along with the police raid and that it was with a question to the largely male 'bystanders' that it had dawned on those around her, that homosexual people didn't have to accept the status quo. That said, I as most LGBT+ people have heard the refrain "Everybody knows trans-people started Stonewall/Pride" in some form and at some level, I assumed that to be true. That said, I had never made that statement because I simply had not examined the evidence, so how could I say?
The other thing that was happening in the controversy and online furore were that American lesbians were robustly asserting that the claim that "Trans-people started Stonewall/Pride" simply wasn't true and they started posting links to articles about a woman called Stormé DeLarverie, suggesting that she was the lesbian woman who had in fact precipitated events at Stonewall. The Wikipedia page also seemed to have a range of sensible references including published books and so I read through &/ watched all the online material and... ordered the books. IF the statement that 'trans people started pride' was not true and it were being used to make a political point against lesbians, that had rather serious implications for the credibility of those making such statements and needed to be seriously investigated.
I happen to be a Quaker and that philosophy encourages us 'to search for truth'. Quaker children don't sing many songs but there is a merry little song about the Bible quoting an early Quaker "The Truth is more holy than a book to me!" It seemed worth digging down into this detail and taking a closer look.
A couple of years ago, I discovered I can be described as having alternate brain configuration 'High Functioning Aspergers... which would explain why I do rather forensically drill down into the detail. I am also an amateur Quaker historian and therefore well used to examining archival material. Thus began my search into the events of that Fri/Sat night of 27-8th June 1969 at the Stonewall Inn in New York City, whose findings I am detailing in this blog.
2 June 2019
Note 1: A professional Slovak translator asked me how 'LGBT' should be translated and I replied "With absolutely no Slovak to my name, I am not sure I am the best person to ask but in other countries I noticed it was translated by saying the letters "El-Ge-Be-Tee..". (I also met Keith Eddins from the US embassy, the same Keith Eddins who would turn up in Hillary Clinton's speech specifically for Slovak PRIDE-Bratislava in 2010, which was a rip-roaring success!).
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