Power to the People: The Stonewall Revolution

The first time I saw what I think were drag queens was in 1969. I was nine years old, on the bus with my mother and sister in Chicago. There were two people who were clearly assigned male at birth, but expressing very feminine identities. They were both African American, both had beautifully coiffed hair done up in the feminine style of the day, which was a bouffant, wearing fur coats and carrying women's handbags.

Everyone on the bus was staring at them, some openly, some more discreetly. I was equally fascinated and disgusted at the same time. Fascinated because they were outwardly expressing how I felt inside. You see, I had wished I was born a girl since I was old enough to recognize myself in context to the world, which was about four years old. My grandmother would even say "you shoulda been a gal, with all that thick hair and pretty legs." She would grab my hair and yank it as if to say, "but you weren't so toughen up."

I was disturbed by the two "sissies," that was the language in black neighborhoods in the 1960s, and I knew that society didn't approve of that behavior.

Little did I know that at the same time two drag queens (Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson) in New York City were hanging out together at places like the Stonewall Inn, being harassed by the police, marginalized by society, denied access to employment, scapegoated by closeted gays, and mocked by feminist lesbians. And that they would resist that harassment one night in late June, initiating what we know as the Stonewall riots.

I knew that I didn't want to face that type of scorn that the drag queens faced on that city bus, so I buried my feelings, deep. Deep enough that no one could "clock my tea" to use an intra-community expression. I would cross-dress whenever I had the opportunity, I fantasied about being a girl frequently (like almost every day), but in everyday life I was a typical little boy, the scouts, sports, girlfriends, etc.

That went on all through high school and halfway through college—until I was discovered having sex with an older white man by my roommate/frat brother. He outed me to the fraternity and I came out as bisexual, which at the time for me was the partial truth, because I knew that I was a transsexual, but I could not imagine sharing that with anyone at the time, not even myself.

But I knew it was true, once when I was fourteen I snuck downtown to the Chicago Public Library and read The Christine Jorgensen Story in its entirety one afternoon. Her life seemed completely out of reach for me, both physically and societally.

So for most of my twenties I was an out bisexual, I had several relationships with men, one that lasted for three years and I introduced him to my family and traveled to Philadelphia to meet his. But the more I began to express my feminine identity, the more uncomfortable my boyfriend became. We eventually broke up. But it was the 1980s, which started out as the apex of the sexual revolution decade, but rapidly became the decade of AIDS—terror struck the gay community.

So much beauty, creativity, and joy was lost in the 1980s and 1990s. I personally lost dear friends, Steph, Big Earl, Jose, and my best friend Micki Jackson. R.I.P. The world lost figures like Essex Hemphill, Alvin Ailey, Rock Hudson, and so many others. It was devastating, and I retreated back into the closet.

But the activist movement was full-blown by then. Borrowing tactics from the civil rights and women's rights movements the struggle for gay liberation was organizing across the country in powerful ways. People began creating organizations and making their voices heard. Progress was happening: Minneapolis had already passed a human rights ordinance that protected LGBT people—yes, it specifically included gender identity in 1975. Then in 1993 Minnesota became the first state in the country to...