The Supreme Court’s landmark 6-3 ruling yesterday gave LGBTQ people the same workplace rights as their straight coworkers, and it came amid the backdrop of the George Floyd civil rights protests.Īs a cub reporter I reported heavily on the overpolicing of queer communities in terms of raids on bars and clubs, and underpolicing when men and women were attacked or went missing.īut there has been great progress in how law enforcement approaches LGBTQ communities. It was the birth of a decades-long, worldwide Pride movement that seeks to this day to liberate LGBTQ people from police violence, homophobic or transphobic laws and social denigration. Instead of the people in the Greenwich Village bar that summer night offering up their identification, they took over the bar and threw the police out, barricaded the doors and started a two-day riot outside the Stonewall Inn. In fact, just months before the events in Manhattan, a man named Howard Efland was stomped to death by Los Angeles Police Officers after being caught having sex in a hotel room with another man and resisted arrest. King’s death prompted Congress to pass the last of the 1960s-era civil rights laws: The Civil Rights Act of 1968 is often thought of only as a fair housing law, but it also extended federal protections for civil rights activists who organized against laws and practices directly aimed at suppressing Black Americans.īut for gay men, lesbian women and trans people – transvestites as they called themselves back then – there hadn’t been a similar reckoning. The preceding 12 months had already seen violent protests and riots in many of the nation’s big cities, particularly in the wake of the April 4, 1968, assassination of Dr. (You can guess how bar patrons had to do this.) Female officers would take people who looked like women to the bathroom and order them to show “proof” of their gender. Typically, the police would ask for identification.
On June 28, 1969, police walked into a bar in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village and told everyone to line up against the wall. June is LGBT Pride Month, commemorating the Stonewall riots, which occurred in June 1969 following a New York Police Department raid of gay patrons at The Stonewall Inn. In this Sunday, June 26, 2016, photo, a police officer applauds as parade-goers shout and wave flags during the New York City Pride Parade, in New York City. Now, it’s time to find better ways to interact with you and ensure we meet your high standards of what a credible media organization should be. The days of journalism’s one-way street of simply producing stories for the public have long been over.