"The protests, sit-ins and direct actions conducted and participated in by early gay liberation groups such as Gay Liberation Front, Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries, Dyketactics and Combahee River Collective demanded radical structural change in the face of continued oppression." "Radical organizing, influenced by and in concert with the antiracist and antiwar movement, followed ," McCarthy says. This collaboration makes the use of "gay power" at this time perhaps unsurprising. Many local groups from Black Power movement and radical queer organizing were able to unite against police brutality in the '70s. "Gay Pride" Replaced "Gay Power" In The 1970sĪccording to a 2006 article published in the journal American Sociological Review, "gay power" was a common slogan used in queer publications and at protests in the '60s and early '70s. McCarthy tell Bustle that Johnson and Rivera's lesser-known (but not less important) siblings include Zazu Nova, a member of the GLF and STAR Stormé Delarverie, a drag king and emcee for trans and drag-centered touring company Jewel Box Revue and Lani Ka'ahumanu, who founded the Bay Area Bisexual Network. Both activists were also members of the anti-capitalist, internationalist group the Gay Liberation Front (GLF), which organized marches, held dances to raise funds for queer people in need, and published a gay newspaper called Come Out!. Johnson and Rivera co-founded STAR, the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries, which organized direct actions like sit-ins as well as provided shelter for trans sex workers and other LGBTQ homeless youth. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, McCarthy says. Many people are familiar with the transformative activism of Marsha P. Trans & Gender Non-conforming Folks Of Color Started Pride
This helped cement Stonewall as the most culturally recognized foundation of Pride. (Christopher Street is the physical home of the Stonewall Inn.) "The Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee was formed to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall uprising of June 1969 with a march from the West Village followed by a 'gay be-in' gathering in Central Park," McCarthy says. The first Pride March - a rally in NYC on the last Saturday in June - was dubbed Christopher Street Liberation Day in honor of the Stonewall riot. On the June night that most people cite as the origin of Pride, the patrons of the Stonewall Inn bar in New York City - led by trans women and femmes of color - fought back against another police raid. "QTPOC-led uprisings like those at Stonewall and The Haven in New York, Cooper Donuts and the Black Cat Tavern in LA, and Compton's Cafeteria in San Francisco were all responses to police harassment and brutality," McCarthy says.Īt the time, people that cops perceived as men could be legally arrested for doing drag, and people that cops perceived as women could also be arrested if they were found wearing less than three pieces of "feminine clothing." Police often raided bars to search for these alleged violations. But Caitlin McCarthy, the archivist for The Center, an LGBTQ community center in New York City, explains that the Stonewall riot was one of many. When asked about when the gay rights movement in this country began, people tend to point to June 28, 1969: the night of the Stonewall Riots. Pride Honors The Gay Rights Protests Of The '60s No matter what you call it, Pride Month has a rich history that informs how it's observed today. President Barack Obama made it more inclusive in 2011, calling it Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month. Though the origins of Pride Month span back to the '50s, President Bill Clinton officially made it "Gay and Lesbian Pride Month" in 2000. June has been an unofficial month of celebratory queerness for decades.
Rainbow flags also start appearing in corporate office windows, coffee shops, and your neighbor's front yard. The sun isn't the only thing that comes out in June.