TO MONUMENT OR NOT TO MONUMENT?

Not Your Average Cistory | Amelia Smith

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In 2016, the Stonewall Inn became the United State’s first LGBT national monument. Declared by Barack Obama, he called upon the memories and myths of the Stonewall Riots that took place in 1969. I feel that museums have a tendency to view national subsidies and recognition of this kind as a universal benefit, but for the queer community, it is not as black and white.

The Stonewall Inn. Source.

The Stonewall Riots were kicked off in response to an anti-gay police raid of the now legendary bar on Christopher Street in New York. Unlike previous raids, the patrons fought back. The Riots would continue for three days, becoming the catalyst needed to spark the Gay Liberation movement. This early movement was not satisfied with homosexuality being normalized, but wanted to improve the lives of all. It is this mentality of not assimilating into heterosexual society that is generally recalled in phrases like “the first pride was a riot”.

With this being said, not everyone held the same goals as the Liberationists. There were many in the movement who sought to elevate the needs of predominantly white middle class gays and lesbians, frequently at the expense of others. These voices became prominent within the LGBT community  and would guide much of the direction that the movement would take in the following decades. Organizations like the Human Rights Campaign fall into this category.

With these two perspectives in mind, thinking about the Stonewall Inn being declared a national monument becomes increasingly curious. The modern view of the Stonewall Riots is one of rebellion, fighting against an unjust system--a fight that continues to this day. While much has been achieved by activists so far, there is still a great deal that needs to be addressed, especially for trans women of colour who are most commonly the targets of violence.

Despite this, the commemoration of the site was described as being apolitical because it was an official government event. In doing so, queer history and state intervention in queer lives is presented as something that only existed in the past and no longer relevant today. This could not be farther from the truth.

What is especially galling about this is the timing of the commemoration; two weeks after the deadly Pulse Massacre in Orlando in which a gunman opened fired at a gay bar, killing 49 people. With the murders of so many members of the LGBT community still fresh on everyone’s minds, to present the Stonewall Inn as a symbol of how far we have come concerning LGBTQ rights,  is farcical at best.

To conclude, I wish to ask the question that guided this piece. Is there a time in which government involvement goes against the narrative at a historic centre or site? I contend that the Stonewall Inn is one such example.

AFTER THE SECOND MOLOTOV: UNRAVELING STONEWALL'S HERITAGE

Not Your Average Cistory | Amelia Smith

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“A transgender woman of colour threw the first brick at Stonewall.” This is a phrase that frequently gets used to place trans people within the LGBT. Often, it is referring to Sylvia Rivera, a trans Latinx sex worker. While she was alive, Rivera rejected the claims, instead stating that she threw “the second Molotov.” Nevertheless, the claim she threw the first brick has had a monumental effect on how Stonewall is remembered and beyond.

For those that might not be aware, the Stonewall Inn was a meeting place for the LGBT community in New York during the 1960s. Because of this, it was often the target of police raids. The constant police harassment would culminate in the early hours on June 28, 1969. The patrons of the Stonewall Inn responded violently, kicking off a riot that would go down in history as starting the Gay Liberation Movement and the modern LGBT.

The legendary Stonewall Inn. Source

Soon after the riots on New York’s Christopher Street, gay rights activist groups began sprouting all over the world. Stonewall had been the spark that ignited a revolution, one based in the methods of the preceding Civil Rights Movement. The following years would see significant gains made by gay activists. But, this is where transgender history and gay history deviate.

Sylvia Rivera was in the Gay Liberation Movement from the start, having even been at Stonewall on the first day of the riots. But she would not stay long. The gay communities were changing, and changing in such a way that left very little room for trans people. The gay male culture was becoming hypermasculine, finding itself in gay clubs and through hard drugs. Meanwhile, the lesbian sphere was getting involved with Second Wave Feminism, typified by its exclusion of transgender individuals.

Gay communities were becoming hostile to trans people, and this shows in the 1971 Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act in New York. Through backroom dealings, the language of the act was changed so as to remove all reference to gender expression in an effort to make it more palatable at the expense of trans individuals. This angered many trans activists, including Rivera, as it seemed like they had been betrayed.

Rivera would leave gay activism a couple years later. The rise of trans exclusionary rhetoric reached a peak at the 1973 Christopher Street Liberation Day Rally, when feminists in the crowd described the trans women present as mocking womanhood. In response, Rivera got on stage, amid boos from the crowd, to decry the inactivity of the gay activists. Her role in the movement would soon be forgotten, only to be rediscovered in the 1990s.



So, what does all this mean, then? To understand that, we need to delve into some theory, specifically Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities and Tony Bennett on narratives. In his essay “Museums and Progress,” Bennett describes narratives as only existing in retrospect, only having value once we give it value. In this way, narratives are entirely constructed and not inherent. This fits in well with Anderson’s Imagined Communities theory in which large groups that will never meet each other imagine a shared comradery.

These theories reflect how Stonewall is viewed in the LGBT. Much like Anderson’s examples of South East Asian monuments, Stonewall became an image that represented LGBT activism. The LGBT has taken the image of Stonewall and mythologized it. No longer does it just represent a place but a whole group and a mentality that can be seen and felt around the world. With the rediscovered involvement of trans activists like Rivera, the narrative that surrounds Stonewall and the LGBT has slowly shifted. No longer was it the start of just Gay Rights, but a larger LGBT community. It brought about more inclusion for trans individuals.

But this inclusion in the narrative problematizes transgender history. It creates an assumption that, since we were present at the start of the movement, gay and trans histories are one and the same. This results in a further erasure of trans history as it gets subsumed by the much larger and more vocal gay history.