The United States legalized same-sex marriage on June 26th, 2015; however, the journey to marriage equality and legalization was bumpy, filled with tragedies and liberation movements. On June 28th, 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay club in New York City, where 13 people were arrested, some of whom were arrested for cross-dressing. The people fought back and this event was dubbed the “Stonewall Riots” and it played a pivotal role in the gay liberation movement of the 1960s which was an important moment in U.S. history that challenged the western idea that sexuality is dependent on gender identity. Trans, drag, and intersex liberation movements were also spearheaded by this event and challenged the social norm of gender identities.
      The Stonewall Riots occurred on June 28, 1969 when police raided Stonewall Inn, gay bar, and arrested multiple individuals. This lead to the Stonewall Rebellion which started when citizens grew tired of the harassment against the LGBTQ+ community. There have been multiple raids before at the Stonewall Inn; however, this raid was different because it was led by eight detectives at 1:20 in the morning without any prior warning to Stonewall management, as they were usually tipped off. Police had patrons line up to check identification cards and were beginning to release those whose attire “deemed ‘appropriate’ to their gender,” but were arresting those who were not. The Stonewall Riots initially started as a raid that has occurred many times in the past, but this night was significant because the patrons fought back this time. The police were taken aback by the sudden retaliation of the bar patrons – as they were usually cooperative – and started taking bigger measures to calm the crowd that had grown into a mob. The bar patrons have been growing tired of the mistreatment of the LGBTQ+ community and among these patrons were Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson, both of whom were transgender women and drag queens. Together they built an organization called “Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries” or STAR, an organization in New York that “offered shelter and sustenance to ‘throw-away’ transvestite youth – distinguished by physical characteristics: shaved eyebrows, hair long enough to attach a fall...” The organization focused on opposing societal injustices against transgender individuals. Both women were present at the Stonewall Riots and used this event as a cornerstone build an organization that helped support young trans individuals whom society has deemed “abnormal” and fought for their rights. On October 5, 1970, just over a year after the Stonewall Riots, Sylvia Rivera headed an event called “Street Transvestites for Gay Power” as a protest against New York University’s unfair treatment of trans and queer individuals as well as hospitals’ psychiatric treatment of these individuals. The beginning of this new understanding of gender and gender identities stemmed from the Stonewall Riots and how it set the stage for human rights movements and for the construction and shifting of gender identities throughout the country.
      Drag liberation movements had its start across the country in San Francisco during the San Francisco Gay Liberation Movement in the 1970. In 1968, a documentary titled The Queen that went behind-the-scenes on the lives of drag queens. The New York Times commented that the film was “’an extraordinary’ depiction of the art of female impersonation that also managed to humanize the men behind the performance.” Hillman goes on to stating that some reviewers disputed the film stating that it was a false depiction of “gay life” saying that “it isn’t all feathers and wigs in the gay life.” Gender identity in the early twentieth century was very black and white in the sense that there were only two genders that were recognized as “real” genders: male and female. Movies such as The Queen only accentuated the stereotypes of the LGBTQ+ community and those who identified outside the gender binary. Drag queens or “street queens” have “participated actively in the 1969 Stonewall Rebellion in New York City, and drag queens have played a headlining role in gay pride parades that began in the 1970s to commemorate the rebellion...” Gender identity played a key role in “determining” an individual’s sexuality because “historically, homosexuality and gender deviance have long been intertwined in both medical and cultural discourse.” Men and women were expected to dress either masculine or feminine according to the biological gender they were assigned at birth (i.e. the Mattachine Society, a nationwide homophile group, requiring dress codes for men and women to be followed) as a “gender-normative tactic” against homosexuality.
      An example of this gender-normative idea of time can be seen in the life of American jazz musician Billy Tipton. Born Dorothy Tipton, Billy Tipton was an American jazz musician who, until he was examined after his death, lived as a man without the public knowing of his transition. However, his death was not highlighted by his musical talents, instead it was highlighted by how he managed to deceive the public up until his death. This was a controversial event because of the magnitude of his deception, having been married to five women and adopting several children, none of whom knew he was born female. The social construction theory makes efforts to examine the “facts” about sex and gender. During the time Billy Tipton was aspiring to be a jazz musician, men were still held at a higher position than women. Therefore, when Billy Tipton first transitioned, his intentions were only to find success in the music industry. Dr. Marilyn Jurich, associate professor of English at Suffolk University in Boston states, “Beginning as what she regarded as a necessary strategy, the shape-shifting became permanent. To make it in a “man’s world,” she had to remain a man; praxis moved into nexus, and perhaps she discovered he was more identical to who she actually was. As a man, not only was she able to find employment as a musician, but as that masculinity, and the power it carried, became permanent to her everyday existence.” The phrase “man’s world” is a very specific way to view gender roles of the time and is seen to be true throughout the history of sexuality and gender identity.
      Furthering the discussion of transgender rights, the case of Brandon Teena in 1993 proved to be a drastic turning point for trans liberation movements in America. Born Teena Brandon, Brandon Teena had just moved of Falls City, Nebraska where he could start fresh as a man but eventually friends found out he was born female. However, things took a turn when two of his friends, Tom Nissen and John Lotter, raped him, upon learning he had a vagina, and later shot and killed him. This event was prevalent in the rise of trans liberation because of the media this case brought to transgender issues. Many transgender activists made an appearance outside the courthouse as the trial was underway and, in 1999, the Brandon Teena story was made into a move – “Boys Don’t Cry.” This case created a platform for public discussions of gender identity and sexuality and also spearheaded the increasing understanding of transgender politics and rights. Dr. John M. Sloop of the University of Iowa states, “Public discourses concerning cases such as the Brandon Teena narrative-indeed, the reactions of the young men responsible for Brandon's death-are due in part to the fact that so many institutions and individuals work to stabilize sex, to reiterate sexual norms, rather than to encourage/ explore gender fluidity.” The case of Brandon Teena disrupted societal views on gender normativity and started to shift its views on the gender binary. Throughout American history, gender was seen through a black and white view point and males and females were expected to act and dress according to the gender they were assigned at birth. The line between gender and sexuality has been blurred during this time period due to the social construction of gender. Carole S. Vance explains in her essay, “It is commonplace for anthropologist to say that human behaviour is socially and culturally constructed, by which we mean that human behaviour is learned and not intrinsic or essentially determined.” Connecting this to trans politics and history, Dr. Linda Heidenreich of Washington State University discusses historian and queer historian Susan Stryker’s look on transgenderism in their essay. Stryker explains:“Some people move away from their birth-assigned gender because they feel strongly that they properly belong to another gender in which it would be better for them to live; others want to strike out toward some new location, some space not yet clearly defined or concretely occupied... [transgender] is the movement across a socially imposed boundary away from an unchosen starting place.”This connects with Vance’s statement because Stryker explains that gender is a socially constructed idea but sex is not. Because of the social constructionism of gender and gender roles of the time, transgenderism was looked down upon, even taboo.
      The discussion of gender brings into question individuals that identify as intersex. On October 26, 1996, 26 members of the Intersex Society of North America conducted a demonstration at the American Academy of Pediatrics meeting in Boston. The demonstration was to advocate for putting an end to unnecessary genital reconstruction procedures. They also advocated for intersex youth rights to give consent to any medical surgery concerning their gender. The Intersex Society of North America also went on to educate members of Congress about “intersex genital mutilation” declaring in their newsletter “it is time for us to...assert our identity as hermaphrodites.” There is a complex but very clear difference between sex and gender. In her essay, “Intersex Identities: Locating New Intersections of Sex and Gender,” Stephanie S. Turner uses Judith Butler’s definition of gender as an example to explain the relationship between sex and gender. Judith Butler describes gender as a “performance” of sex and as “contributing to the construction of the sexual body itself.” Gender is a socially constructed idea of how males and females should or should not behave and dress. What Butler is stating is that gender is a behaviour based on the gender identity of the individual. However, society does not take into consideration the individuals who identify outside the gender binary. For example, Turner states, “In Butler’s analysis, the only ‘bodies that matter’ are those that can be easily categorized ‘within the productive constraints of certain highly gendered regulatory schemas’...Intersexed bodies can matter (i.e., can only exist socially) only if they can be made to fit within the dimorphic sex schema that follows form concepts of what male and female persons should look like and how they should act.” This is the reason for medical intervention at birth by most babies born with ambiguous genitalia. Society is so focused on categorizing people that it forgets that there are those who do not identify within those categories. However, this does not give them a chance to figure out their own gender identity but rather have their gender chosen for them. This intersex liberation movement does not only want to abolish medical practices of “correcting” ambiguous genitalia but want to change the known concepts of sex and gender. Turner argues that the case of intersexuality proves the “inconsistencies between sex as biological and gender as the socially mandated range of signs and acts indicative of sex.” Sex does not equal gender and intersex liberation aims to educate and change the black and white picture society has of gender and gender identity.
      The Stonewall Riots set the stage for trans, drag, and intersex liberation movements. Feminists and LGBTQ+ activists and theorists such as Sylvia Rivera, Marsha P. Johnson, and Judith Butler have made advances in furthering education on LGBTQ+ politics and rights. They also spearheaded many demonstrations and protests for transgender rights. Furthering the timeline of understanding, the case of Brandon Teena was a turning point for transgender rights in the early 90s and started to shift the views on gender binaries. What must be understood is that gender and sex are different and we must continue to further our education.​​
References:
Duberman, Martin, and Andrew Kopkind. Grand Street. New York, NY: Grand Street Press, 1993.
Driskill, Qwo-Li. “All Power to the People: A Gay Liberation Triptych.” QED: A Journal    in GLBTQ Worldmaking 6, no. 2 (2019): 44.​
Cohen, Stephan L. The Gay Liberation Youth Movement in New York: "An Army of Lovers Cannot Fail". New York: Routledge, 2008.​
Hillman, Betty Luther. The Most Profoundly Revolutionary Act a Homosexual Can Engage In: Drag and the Politics of Gender Presentation in the San Francisco Gay Liberation Movement, 1964–1972. 2011.
Heidenreich Zuñiga, Linda. Jack Mugarrieta Garland: A Queer Mestiz@ in the ‘American West’. Lilith: A Feminist Theory Journal, 2015.​
Middlebrook, Diane Wood. Suits Me: the Double Life of Billy Tipton. London: Virago, 1999. Sloop, John S. Western Journal of Communication. 2000.​
Turner, Stephanie S. Intersex Identities. Gender & Society 13: 1999.
Vance, Carole S. Social Construction Theory: Problems in the History of Sexuality. GMP
Publishers, 1989.
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