Stonewall To Pride: Black Transwomen Led Fight For Equal Rights

The most likely scenario does not involve a brick or Molotov cocktail but rather the pleas ofStorme DeLarverie, a mixed-race lesbian.

While she was being thrown into the back of a police car, she asked her queer brothers and sisters, “Aren’t you going to do something?”

Because ofMafia ownershipand stringent liquor laws, the Stonewall Inn, a popular night spot for the queer community, was aneasy target for police raidsduring the 1960s.

At approximately 2 a.m., New York police officers arrived to clear out the bar at its closing time. Initially, most patrons were cooperative, but as harassment and arrests increased, the mostly queer patrons fought back.

Though the details ofthe origins of that nightremain murky, what is clear is that both Johnson and Rivera were there and would later become anchors of gay rights and queer resistance.

Their protests, as well as the actions of other Black gay people in an earlier and little-known act of defiance, demonstrate how queer women of color were often overlooked but at the forefront of gay liberation.

Despite some social progress, Black transwomen continue to pay the price, sometimes with their lives.

Misperceptions of the Stonewall Riots

As a first-generation Black American and gay professor whoresearches the intersectionofrace and health,HIV,andqueer activism, I look for ways to better teach queer activism during myrhetoric of social movements course.

I have learned that the story of Stonewall became popularized when amovie was releasedin 2015. But the “Stonewall” movie was met withharsh criticismfor whitewashing the story and omitting the role of Black and Latina queer people.

In the movie, a gay white man throws the first brick, but almost every public account of the nightdiscredits this version.

Instead, it wasqueer people of colour, especially gender-nonconforming individuals, who led the charge. These individuals and other examples of queer resistance are often erased and forgotten in popular culture.

An overlooked act of defiance

Stonewall was not the first act of public defiance by the gay community.

TheCompton’s Cafeteria riottook place about three years before Stonewall and nearly 3,000 miles away in San Francisco.

Compton’s Cafeteria, located in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, was a popular late-night gathering spot in the 1960s for transgender people, particularly transwomen.

But the cafeteria’s management and the police subjected these marginalized communities to harassment and constant mistreatment. Transwomen were often arrested underfemale impersonation lawsand faced public humiliation and enduring physical violence.

In August 1966, a pivotal incident at Compton’s Cafeteria sparked the flames of resistance.

The documentary “Screaming Queens” highlights the injustice faced by the trans community at the time, which wasmostly women of colourengaging in sex work.

After years of enduring mistreatment, a group of transwomen, drag queens, and gender-nonconforming individuals decided they had endured enough.

When a police officer attempted to arrest one of the transwomen, she defiantly threw her cup of hot coffee in his face. Within a few moments, patrons overturned a police car.

This act of resistance ignited a spontaneous uprising within the cafeteria and on the streets. By the time it was over, police had arrested dozens of people and beaten countless others.

Although theCompton’s Cafeteria riotdid not receive the same level of national attention as other events, it had a profound and lasting impact.

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Black Transwomen Fight For Equal Rights

Despite these acts of public defiance and growing public acceptance, transwomen of colour repeatedly report higherrates of unemployment,elevated rates of stigmafrom healthcare providers,shattered trust with law enforcement,anddisproportionate rates of HIVand other ailments.

In addition, the murder of transpeoplenearly doubled from 29 deaths in 2017 to 56 in 2021, according to the nonprofitEverytown for Gun Safety.

The Human Rights Commissionnotes that Black and Latina transwomen are at the highest risk of violence, with some assailants being able to skirt jail time due to the “gay/trans panic defence,” which enables a suspect to blame their violent reaction on the victim’s sexuality.

So far in 2023, the murders ofCashay Henderson, a Black transwoman andKoKo Da Doll, the lead actor in “Kokomo City,”a Sundance Award-winning documentary, serve as tragic reminders of the ongoing violence and discrimination targeting queer people.

Deion Scott Hawkins is an Assistant Professor of Argumentation & Advocacy, Emerson College, published the article first with The Conversation.