Comments on: Stonewall forty years on

By: pe-jota

pe-jota — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 18:18:47 +0000

Only forty years !!!, I was only seven years when all this happened.

By: John

John — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 18:32:51 +0000

Rant entirely justified, thanks. The police in their nightclub raids were harassing and arresting drag queens, not guys in business suits. “Avant garde of lgbtq rights” is exactly right.

By: Evan

Evan — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 17:41:22 +0000

I was just going to mention “flamboyance” as I read the comments. One highly important thing to remember about Stonewall is the degree to which trans people, drag queens, et al. were instrumental in the revolt. Like them or not, people refusing the yoke of gender norms have always been at the forefront of the battle. They’re literally the avant garde of lgbtq rights, and those homosexuals who would exclude them from the mainstream(?) human rights movement are both foolish and hypocritical.

My rant is now complete.

By: John

John — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 14:24:37 +0000

Yes, Iowa changed the law a couple of months ago.

In the past it’s nearly always been the flamboyant types that led the way in standing up to prevailing social attitudes; other men could pretend they were straight and hide behind sham marriages. A notable example of the former is Quentin Crisp. In Jack Gold’s great film of The Naked Civil Servant, there’s a crucial scene in court after he’s been wrongfully arrested by the police who accuse him of importuning. He gives a speech describing how he stoically bears the brunt of society’s vilification yet refuses to behave any differently. That was a tough stance to take in the 1930s.

By: Wiley

Wiley — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 04:34:49 +0000

Holy shit, gay marriage is legal in my state, well I’ll be damned. I’d always wondered how so many hardline err, whatevers and so many err, flamboyant people could co-exist in Des Moines without having some of the confrontations that one sees in the prettier but poor Deep South states. Oh I know, because even if they don’t like it, they grudgingly accept that equal rights is supposed to be the law.