Gay Rights: The Stonewall Riots

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In the United States history, it is taken to be discriminated against for being “different”. One group in particular was, and always has been discriminated against being lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgendered people known as, LGBT, have fought for equal rights since the 1950s. With many Americans frowning upon the LGBT lifestyle in this time period, it is keen to knowing that soon enough, the LGBT community would take action. On June 28th, 1969 in Greenwich Village in Manhattan, one of the most memorable moments in LGBT history took place. Stonewall, a popular gay bar was raided with police forces that quickly escalated and exponentially resulted in Stonewall patrons of all gender identities and sexual orientations to begin forceful attacks against the New York City Police in order to prove that they are people who deserve to be treated equally. The Stonewall Riots were …show more content…
Stonewall, located on 51st and 53rd Christopher Street in Greenwich Village. As seen, Greenwich is home to homosexuals and homeless individuals in New York City. Stonewall was one of the very few, somewhat safe havens, for homosexual men and some lesbian women. In order to protect the patrons of the club, those who wished to enter were first observed by a bouncer at the front door of the club through a peephole. This was mandatory due to the fact that police officers would go undercover and cruise the gay scene, looking for homosexual men looking for sex and would arrest them. “Identifying the homosexuals in a crowd could be challenging…” (Bausum). This was rather difficult because homosexual men did not want to stand out as an openly gay man. The risks were too high, if arrested, their name, photo, address and place of work would appear in the newspaper due to their persecution for being openly

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