Sundance

• Its unclear who threw the first brick at Stonewall Inn on that night in New York City that arguably launched the gay rights liberation movement.
• As part of queer lore, Marsha P. Johnson, a Black transwoman at the forefront of gay liberation, or Sylvia Rivera, a Latina transwoman, was the first.
• But based on their accounts of that night of June 28, 1969, neither threw that first brick.
• Despite some social progress, Black transwomen continue to pay the price, sometimes with their lives.

Misperceptions of the Stonewall Riots

• I have learned that the story of Stonewall became popularized when a movie was released in 2015.
• But the “Stonewall” movie was met with harsh criticism for whitewashing the story and omitting the role of Black and Latina queer people.

An overlooked act of defiance

• Stonewall was not the first act of public defiance by a gay community.
• The Compton’s Cafeteria riot took 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.
• This act of resistance ignited a spontaneous uprising within the cafeteria and on the streets.

Hate still runs rampant

• In addition, the murder of transpeople nearly doubled from 29 deaths in 2017 to 56 in 2021, according to the nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety.
• So far in 2023, the murders of Cashay Henderson, a Black transwoman and KoKo 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.