Protesters in New York City gathered this week at the site of the original Stonewall Inn in New York City to protest and denounce the sudden deletion by the National Parks Service from the Stonewall Inn National Monument website of any reference to transgender people, in an attempt to erase the historical role of trans activists in the uprising that launched the contemporary movement for LGBTQ liberation.
The historic Stonewall Uprising of 1969, where huge throngs of LGBTQ their supporters gathered to denounce anti-queer police violence, is recognized as a landmark moment in the centuries-old struggle against homophobia and transphobia. In New York City, and around the country, militant street actions went on for days and weeks following the initial uprising. The broad movement for the liberation of LGBTQ people is well established and still moving forward today.
Leading organizers of the Stonewall demonstrations included significant numbers of trans activists. These activists militantly confronted police and government officials who were using brutal violence to subdue the protests. Two of the recognized leaders at Stonewall were trans activists Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera.
Now, the National Parks Service has defied history and deleted all mention of trans oppression and the struggle against it. This comes at a time when when bigoted President Trump has signed numerous anti-trans executive orders.
The Stonewall Uprising, as well as uprisings in Los Angeles in (1967, The Black Cat), and San Francisco (1966, The Compton Cafeteria), marked historic moments in the struggle for human rights and an end to oppression and anti-LGBTQ police terror. Stonewall was declared a national historic site in 2016 and the National Parks Service placed a plaque there in 2024. Now, in a total reversal, the Parks Service is deleting and erasing all references to transgender participation in the uprisings.
Inspired by broad anti-racist, anti-colonial, and women’s liberation struggles that were sweeping the country, the LGBTQ liberation movement was born. After centuries of patriarchal rule where women, homosexuals and gender non-conforming workers were persecuted, put to death, jailed, and harassed, the cry of “Stonewall Means Fight Back” swept over the world and continues to ring out everywhere.
It is important to note that revolutionaries and socialists hailed these events as a historic development in the advance of a united working class. Unity is needed to fight for a socialist world, in struggles that include the revolutionary militancy of the queer community; a world where bigotry, racism, sexism, anti-gay and anti-trans oppression will be historically defeated, paving the way for a world run by workers and for workers.
