Stonewall History

To kick off the beginning of Pride Month, I thought I’d share my favorite articles about the Stonewall Riots.

The first is actually a collation of several accounts from 1969 that describe the events of those nights, compiled and edited by Stonewall historian David Carter. Clicking this link will download it as a word doc. This collation goes into a lot of detail, and Carter attempts to resolve some of the apparent inconsistencies between accounts (see the footnotes). While it takes a decent amount of time to read through, I think it’s worth it for the thorough coverage of the initial riot and following nights.

The texts document how the raid on Stonewall–the second within a week–came after a series of raids and closures of gay bars during the past several weeks. Bars such as the Stonewall were targeted by the police for operating without a license, which the State Liquor Authority denied to establishments that catered to gay clientele. After confiscating cases of liquor, the police began arresting the management and some employees, and checking patrons for IDs and (as I understand it) gender-suitable attire. As patrons were released one by one, a crowd began to gather outside, which became more defiant after a police van showed up and employees and drag queens were loaded inside. Multiple reports cite a butch lesbian resisting arrest as a turning point in the mood of the crowd. The police vehicles left to take away those who’d been arrested, leaving the police at the bar unguarded. More objects began to be thrown and the police that remained retreated to the bar and barricaded inside. Windows were smashed, a fire was started inside the bar, and the door was forced open–reports say that a parking meter was used as a battering ram. Police had begun pointing guns at the crowd from the open door by the time backup arrived, at which point the crowds were dispersed.

The second article is called “Movements and Memory: The Making of the Stonewall Myth” by Elizabeth A Armstrong and Suzanna M Crage. This is an academic article that analyzes how Stonewall came to achieve a central place in gay collective memory. (Try not to be put off by the first few pages that deal with theoretical concepts and research design.) It looks at other events that failed to gain similar annual commemoration–the San Francisco New Year’s Ball Raid (January 1965), the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot (San Francisco, August 1966), the Black Cat Raid (Los Angeles, January 1967), and the Snake Pit Bar Raid (New York, Mary 1970)–and discusses how Stonewall came to be successfully recognized as worthy of annual, national, public commemoration. The authors reveal that this was not a spontaneous occurrence, but “spread through the numerous, deliberate activities of individuals and groups.”

Reading these gave me a better understanding of what occurred at Stonewall and how we came to celebrated Pride, so I wanted to share them with anyone else who might be interested.

No two women have the same experience. All feminism is founded not on actual essential unity, but on political coalition and affirmation of shared political needs and goals.

Race, culture, class, birth assignment, religion, and countless other factors mean all women experience womanhood differently. Excluding trans women because we have a different life experience misses the point that all women have different life experiences. This idea isn’t even new, its not even specific to trans women, its literally the point Crenshaw and Collins and Mohanty and countless other woc and third world feminists have been making for decades now.

i think one of the more frustrating features of the cyclical surges of casual transmisogyny like this on here is the ease with which people dismiss it. its the same every time, a popular user is transmisogynistic, more often than not sexually harassing them in the process; sometimes this is interpreting a word in a post as sexual to lay into them with accusations, or maybe they see a trans woman being sexual or kinky, and extrapolate that because of that then she just must secretly be a sexual predator of some sorts, which means ive got a free pass to interrogate her on her kinks!

and the infuriating thing is that every time this happens, its almost exclusively trans women who actually see the transmisogyny for what it is. transfeminine sexuality, regardless of its actual contents, is always perceived as deviant and degenerate by default in the cultural understanding. because of this, when trans women try to point out the reality of the situation, non-trans women wince and grimace and shy away, they dont want to admit that they’re afraid or repulsed by trans sexuality, but they won’t confront it either. which is why we get these mental gymnastics of trying to find dirt on their target or interpret things in a more convenient way before making things up wholesale. and if that doesn’t work, just say she’s into raceplay or a pedo, nobody’s gonna check anyway (this one’s a far too popular move)

ultimately this behavior is deeply unserious for those interested in trans liberation and people must be able to challenge their own views and grow to be able to recognize this nonsense for what it is. you have to get over your crises of sexuality when it comes to trans women

actually i'm maybe not supposed to say this but i think transphobia and antisemitism are very similar insofar as fighting for our right to exist with the justification that we're capable of conforming is actively perpetuating the very systemic issues that oppress us and only contributing to the cultural anxieties that fuel bigotry towards us

so i've talked about this before wrt the denial of jewish difference being an overlooked factor leading up to the holocaust and in the rise of modern antisemitism, but people don't understand how nazi ideology—or terf ideology—actually works. it's not "this thing is different and therefore bad." instead, it's "my worldview was once defined by this thing being different (and bad), but now the lines between Other and Self are being blurred in ways that i find unacceptable."

if your counterargument is that jews/trans women are often literally indistinguishable from white people/cis women, you've already lost. you're just pointing out precisely what the nazis/terfs are taking issue with; they'll argue with you by saying that there will always be some essential, inherent difference, but that's not the point. they're afraid of that lack of difference, of the disintegration of the boundary between jew and european/man and woman. they need that difference for their world to make sense. what you are saying can only radicalize them further.

but there's also another problem we've chosen to ignore. neither jews nor trans women (nor trans people more broadly, for that matter) should be asked to conform in the first place. these arguments rely on the preexisting, deeply ingrained idea that the right way to "deal with" the problem of jewish existence/visible gender nonconformity is to obscure, suppress, or remedy it to the greatest extent possible. (i'm not denying the realities of gender dysphoria, here; i'm just pointing out that we fail to acknowledge a much bigger picture when addressing those realities.)

nearly all current (popular) arguments in favor of accepting jews/trans people into mainstream society rely on the idea that we are capable of conforming to its standards of normalcy. nearly all of these arguments implicitly suggest that if this were not the case, our marginalization and oppression would be justifiable; the key is that they refuse to disavow the underlying belief that jewishness and gender nonconformity are inherently bad. and these arguments are at least in part a response to the radical fringe (nazi/terf) positions on both groups—ignoring the reasons that such positions exist in the first place.

so really it's this vicious cycle in which people try to answer the question of how we're meant to deal with these unacceptable differences without the possibility of disagreeing with those premises, to the point that people might be accused of antisemitism/transphobia if they try to. and, i don't know, i feel like that's worth talking about, i guess.

Antisemitism has some similarities with transmisogyny in that both center around the idea of deceptive and manipulative outsiders and infiltrators that must be identified with careful inspections of one’s phenotype, and investigations into their background. The idea that the Jew or the trans woman are hiding in plain sight and must be revealed so they don’t “trick” people is omnipresent in fascist and transmisogynist propaganda.

A brand new essay, many weeks in the making: "Gender-Affirming Care for Trans Youth Is Neither New nor Experimental: A Timeline and Compilation of Studies."

It provides a brief history of how gender-affirming care came to be, debunks the most common anti-trans talking points & tactics, and includes a reference list of over 100 studies & reviews showing how established this field is. I hope that it's a useful resource to counter the current wave of trans-skeptical and just-asking-questions media pieces.

This is a no-paywall link, please share with others and give it lots of "claps" (up to 50, I think) so that other Medium users will see it!

embracing the patterned ambiguity of gender and sex as more or less social constructs can grant you so much more precision in thinking about so many concepts in science.

like, if there was a study (and I'm just making this up as an example) showing women suffer from mosquito bites more than men do

you could do the ~"Gender Critical"~ thing and go "see!? mosquitoes get it!!"

OR

you could go "that's interesting" and start asking more questions, like:

because in fact the study i made up just then could lead to a huge variety of conclusions. from my description above you can't tell the difference between studies that show:

etc etc etc

you're just not going to understand actual Gender Science, and therefore reality, if you can't put "hmm, but what do they mean by woman this time" in your mental toolkit in a relatively neutral way.

Honestly this is a great way of presenting the kind of scientific literacy that is needed in an era of clickbait headlines and sound bites and facts that turn into memes; so much science "news" as reported by mass media distills nuanced studies into easily quotable and shocking one-liners that generally ignore the context behind the statistic.

when people who want to be vaguely progressive say 'nature' all secular style but it's painfully obvious they mean 'god' while thinking they don't mean god

"natural behaviour" "the natural body" "nature intended" "nature created" no da fuck it didn't

“Culture tends to argue that it forbids only that which is unnatural. But from a biological perspective, nothing is unnatural. Whatever is possible is by definition also natural. A truly unnatural behaviour, one that goes against the laws of nature, simply cannot exist, so it would need no prohibition.” - Yuval Noah Harari

Oh, the text describing/discussing it on the website is very interesting too!

“NOT ALL KIDS ARE STRAIGHT. TEACH ABOUT GAY & LESBIAN LIVES”, a poster from the lesbian avengers in belfast, ireland, photographed by maxine wolfe, 1998

gotta get this out as it’s been on my mind in recent week. i’m no longer an academic and i’m not an influencer, so i don’t really have the platform to point this out to the people writing about this in major publications, but,

i made a kind of inflammatory post about this before (that i don’t regret in the slightest), but a significant factor that brought state-sanctioned trans oppression to this level in the US is the fact that the white majority of queer people (cis and trans) did not sufficiently feel concerned by the physical and state violence that was and still is disproportionately experienced by black people, namely black trans women in this case. for years, the ballpark of 80-90 something percent of trans people who were murdered were black. this is still the case today. this has never inspired national mobilization, at least for as long as i’ve been blogging with some of the vets here about it. now that most trans influencers who write about these issues are even more painfully white than ever before, i see even less social media coverage on all platforms about the deaths of black trans women then a decade ago on this lil website. mind you, most of the black tumblr users from that time and now don’t have publishing deals and aren’t being hired to write at major publications.

which directly brings me to the next thing i struggle with. the oppression of trans people has been likened to a genocide at the current moment because white trans people cannot ignore the state-sanctioned violence anymore. when black trans women were exclusively known to bear the brunt of deadly anti-trans violence, not a single LGBT-oriented publication or “ally” called it a genocide. the HRC had begun recording the deaths of trans people since 2013, and other organizations began to closely follow suit. the alarm should have been sounded by the people with some sort of political clout then, when we were all blogging about it. the saying goes that social issues generally aren’t taken seriously in the USA until white people feel the heat, and when they do feel the heat, the issue already ravaged a minority group of some sort and has reached apocalyptic levels due to their negligence. we saw this with the war on drugs, the 2008 stock market crash, and we’re seeing this repeat itself now. ignoring antiblackness has put all trans people in a serious bind with people slow to react.

and the question is, why has this specific form of negligence ballooned to more blatant calls of genocide? there’s a lot of reasons. and i hope the black queer people who publish research about this link something concrete together in the future. but from my observations, the fact that most of the people murdering black trans women are also black presents an optics problem for the majority white queer writers who occupy the largest platforms yet experience the least of the violence. not only do they ignore black trans people based on antiblackness but something tells me a lot of them perceive this to be a “black-on-black” problem that can be dismissed, while the white men and women who feel emboldened to pass anti-trans legislation is a “white-on-white” problem and should be mobilized against because the victimhood of white people is respected as a crisis. and on the flip side, black people have significantly less political capital with regard to queer issues. many straight (and queer!) black people agree with patriarchy and don’t see this as a problem worth fighting for to enable “black unity,” and the black people who do attempt to write about this have far less social reach unless a mainstream publication picks them up. the result is black queer people end up politically isolated in much the same way that black women are—-the feminist majority tend to be racist and anti-racist majority tend to be misogynists.

allowing white people to be the primary voice for all gender related issues all women related issues has its own set of problems that i have been blogging about for literal years lol but i’m not gonna get into that on this post. i’m numb to what is going on; not because i don’t care, because i’ve been hollering about it for years. i’ve been tongue lashing everyone for years. i’m numb because the reason why we’re here is because yall ignored and continue to ignore black people. who, again, shoulder the brunt of the recorded violence and the state-sanctioned repression that enables it. it’s totally fine that white people speaking up has finally inspired people to join an organization, mobilize with their local LGBT community, offer significant financial assistance to causes that help, all that. i’m happy for you that must be nice…

also it is a huge mistake to liken what is happening to nazi germany as if genocide is foreign to America, but i’ll probably write a separate post about that. i am seeing too many white progressives completely ignore the fact that nazi doctors, nazi scientists, and nazi politicians wrote down that Jim Crow, the American eugenicist movement, and the genocide of native americans were events that laid the foundation for their ideology. they praised these events and used them as sources of inspiration. the USA was not culturally hostile to nazi ideology just because the military fought against them in WW2. naziism is american. cross dressing has been criminalized in the USA before. chill on the american exceptionalism perhaps!!! that’s all i got it’s 8am and i should be asleep but i am shaken awake due to manmade horrors totally within the confines of my comprehension. 😎

Dayna Tortorici, Your Body, My Choice The movement to criminalize abortion

hello! i have once again updated my gender/queer studies resource folder!

new additions

there are also a ton of new ftm periodicals that i added in my last update that are highlighted with red folders in the periodicals/magazines folder, if anyone is interested!

as always, if there are any suggestions/requests for media to add to my folder, shoot me a dm or ask!

Making my own post so as not to start shit on someone else’s (which was all nice and positive) but uh-

An aspect of fatphobia that I have, to date, not seen talked about, is the way that fat sexuality is always made into something predatory or disgusting. An example being the stereotype of the fat man as a sexual predator lusting after much thinner- and therefore attractive and “good”- women (the image of the fat neckbeard gamer stereotype comes to mind, or the stereotype of the fat anime fan drooling over “waifus”), or the fat woman as being clingy, needy, having unrealistic expectations, and always chasing after the much thinner- and therefore attractive and “good”- man. And yes, this is AMAZINGLY cis-hetero focused because a) a lot of things are and b) fat people are constantly excluded from queer spaces.

And when fat sexuality isn’t being portrayed in this way, then it’s being portrayed as some kind of gross fetish. Like, the assumption that the only possible way a thin person could be attracted to a fat person is if they have some sort of fetish for fat bodies is… Fucking pervasive as hell. The stereotypes about fat people being unhygienic, dirty, and overall gross has a MASSIVE impact on how people think sex works when a fat person, or multiple fat people, are involved- and it also has a massive impact on us fat folks who have sex. I’ve spent YEARS being ashamed of perfectly normal things because I thought that if I sweat during sex (a rigorous activity), that it was disgusting because I’m fat.

 I cannot tell you how many people have made assumptions about the nature of my relationships, have made assumptions about the shape of my partners, have made assumptions about my partner’s sexual interests, because I am fat. That goes doubly so because I am queer and non-binary, and I constantly feel like I am Not Allowed to fit into those spaces and be part of a queer expression of sexuality because of how my body looks. The number of people who have met my wife and assumed, because she is thin, that she must be into feederism or have some other kind of “fetish” for fat bodies is… Absurd. Too many. I’ve lost count. And when I or my wife corrects those people- no, she just likes the way I look, she finds me attractive, it’s not a fucking kink (and we have those so we know the damn difference) and it’s not a fetish. She just finds me physically appealing… I’ve actually had people say (and it’s been more than one person) “But… How?” And aside from that just being hurtful as fuck, it reinforces the fact that we do not see fat people as people, in any arena. We are not allowed to be people, who experience sexuality in as varied a way as every other fucking person does.

No, we are fat. And therefore, we must either be constantly chasing skinny, attractive, “good” partners who could never want us. Or we’re predatory and that chasing takes on a very sinister tone. Or we’re simply here to be looked at and consumed as someone’s fetish, an object to which sexual things are done- and specifically “gross” sexual things. Fat people are only allowed to be sexual in the world of “kinks”, which I put in quotes because the people who think this also seem to 1) have no idea what kink actually is and 2) don’t know that fat people are ALSO often excluded from kinky spaces.

Tl;Dr- the de-sexualization or the making of the sexual fat person into a predator, or a fetish object, is an aspect of fatphobia that has a MASSIVE impact on fat people who want to explore their sexuality or just lead sexual lives, like most other people do, and it’s something that needs to be discussed.

(Also adding in a note that this brand of fatphobia also impacts asexual and aromantic people- I have frequently seen ace and aro fat people being told that the only reason they are not interested in sex/ romance is because they are fat and no one wants to fuck/ date them.)

Tweet by Indonesian trans activist, Amar Alfikar:

Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un

Why do we do this thing where we're like "You wouldn't do this to another marginalized community."

I just saw a video of a bi person going "people act like the only bi woman is white and middle class, but they don't do that with lesbians or gay men." I immediately thought "Yes they do, though."

I've seen people say it with "You wouldn't say it about Jews" as a talking point against racism, with examples that I've definitely seen happen to Jewish people. "You wouldn't say this to a Black person" about comments I've seen Black people receive.

"Don't tell me I can heal my invisible disabilities with enough willpower, you wouldn't say that to a wheelchair user!" - they do though.

It's rare that a bigoted mindset doesn't replicate itself across groups. There are specifics for each marginalized group, but if a shitty attitude exists towards one, it most likely exists towards others. If you haven't seen it - it's likely your positioning.

If you want to discuss an issue you experience, you don't have to use another marginalized group as an example of someone who has it better. If you're wrong and they do suffer, you just contributed to erasure.

Going to add a maybe controversial thing but:

Women who are attracted to men but also don't like penetrative sex - and I'm definitely + explicitly + it's very much the point including vaginal penetrative sex here - are also perfectly within their rights to have that boundary and to have it respected.

Straight or bisexual women, cis or trans women, doesn't matter - I feel like womanhood is often equated with enjoying penetration. But it's not. Your identity doesn't dictate what you like sexually. And what you like sexually doesn't dictate your identity.

And I think especially for women who are attracted to men, enjoying penetrative sex is considered such a must that many of us don't even question it - to the point that a) not wanting it is considered a medical issue by itself and b) with many medical complications or conditions or even psychological reasons that someone might find vaginal penetration painful, the first concern is often not even to fix the underlying issue or even to make that kind of sex pleasurable - but to make her "functional" for her partner again. (Prized example: The husband-stitch. Generally, I hear so often from women whose partners got impatient with their recovery after they gave birth and who felt pressured to have vaginal sex before they felt like it.)

So I just want to say:

Womanhood does not equal enjoying penetration.

Being AFAB doesn't equal enjoying penetration.

Being attracted to men doesn't equal enjoying penetration.

What you enjoy sexually is not a matter of your identity. It's only a matter of what you enjoy and what you and your partner(s) genuinely want to do.

And actually, yes, this specifically goes out to heterosexual cis women in particular: Even if you never ever ever want to have vaginal penetrative sex - that's perfectly fine. You are perfectly within your rights to have that boundary. And no man has any right to force you. And calling you "uptight" or "vanilla" or "weird" or "but you own a dildo" - that's a way of forcing you. He has two options a) accept your boundary and find a different way to have sex b) accept your boundary and go home.

If there is an underlying medical issue like cysts or if you have vaginismus that diminishes your quality of life - of course I recommend seeing a doctor. And if you have experienced trauma, I recommend therapy. All of which should be focussed on helping you with the things that you deem important - and not what your partner or a potential partner deems important.

But if you simply just don't want to have penetrative sex - then don't. Nothing is wrong with you. No one has any right to force you.

We often say "don't do anal if you don't want to", "don't do oral if you don't want to" - and those are very, very true! But I feel like we don't say "don't do vaginal if you don't want to" or "don't have penetrative sex at all if you don't want to" often enough to women - because it's such an expectation that everyone would enjoy it.

And also, you don't owe anyone an explanation. Sometimes, trauma is a reason - but if you have experienced trauma, you're not obligated to tell your partner the details of it to justify not wanting to have that kind of sex. "No" is a full sentence. Sometimes the fear of pregnancy or contraception failing is a reason - and that's also to be respected.

And if you don't have any reason related to trauma or a medical condition - you're still perfectly within your rights to have that boundary respected. Sex is supposed to feel good for both partners involved. And any partner who doesn't care about your boundaries or pressures you - is for the streets. Gotta go. Is an ex. Shoo. Out. Over.

last night on Iranian Twitter, queer people decided to to talk about the oppression that they've faced during the last 43 years of Islamic Republic. in this post, i will share some of the tweets with you. if you want to check out the original tweets, search the hashtag #من_کوئیر_هستم or #IAmQueer 🏳️‍🌈

tw for homophobia, transphobia, execution and discrimination

"Did it happen to you that people talk about executing you in front of you in the class? but you have to keep calm to not get in trouble; you just cry quietly".

"his father was a mullah, i didn't want to judge him. one day i asked him what he thinks about queer people. he said he would take part in a gay person's execution if he could".

"i almost can't go shopping by myself. i can't be a fixed customer of a lot of shops. many places in this climate is temporal to me. if i go there a lot they'll find out that i'm queer and that strange gaze will get started".

"one therapist asked my mother if she experienced mental trauma while she was pregnant with me since i came out as trans".

"in Iran, the country where i was born and raised, i'm considered a filthy and criminal creature".

"i can't come out of the closet in Iran. i was born "illegal" and my existence is illegal here".

"police at Karaj metro station: tell us what you are. are you a girl or a boy?

while looking at my short hair without a veil, and looking for the bulge of the breasts in my loose dress".

"to be honest, i lied to others about my sexual orientation and gender and humiliated and suffocated myself in order to avoid harassment and possible threats. sometimes i think it's meant to be a secret forever".

"it's impossible for me and others like me to obtain fair and efficient medical services. we have to prove ourselves to the therapist in order to make the transition process".

"they said: you want to become a man because men are more free, don't you?"

"my and my cousin figured out that we're queer in the same time. and then we realized that our religion doesn't accept that. i chose my queerness, but they chose their religion".

"i'm a queer protester. i'm openly protesting but i'm not openly queer. so if i get killed i will be announced as a cishet man and i'm ok with it. why? because i live with my queer partner and their safety is my priority".

"i remember in highschool, the students told me if i act "too gay", they will tell the school principal. i ran and hid somewhere, fearing that someone might find out".

"i tried for weeks to connect to the Internet to come here and say that #IAmQueer".

17-year-old trans woman and queer activist, Raha Ajudani was arrested 20 days ago without any reason given by the authorities.

Elham Choobdar, a queer activist has been charged with "corruption on Earth" and "promotion of homosexuality". she's been sentenced to death.

Zahra Sedighi Hamedani was arrested alongside Elham and has been charged with the same "crimes". apparently her execution has been cancelled but her life is still in danger.

please say their names and amplify their voices.

"this is the voice of LGBTQ"

"Queer, Trans, Freedom"