| By: Paul S. Cilwa | Viewed: 12/5/2023 |
Page Views: 2726 | |
| Topics: #History #LGBTRights #GayRights #BisexualRights #TranspersonRights | |||
| My essays on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transperson history and rights. | |||
I am a gay man. After spending the first 44 years of my life deeply closeted (and miserable), I finally came out to my friends and family in 1995. And, as a natural-born activist, I then decided to do what I could to help my fellow sexual oddballs to realize that being gay is no sin, and is nothing to be ashamed of. To that end, I began studying gay and lesbian history. And my feelings and conclusions about that history is what you'll find in this section.
It Happened At Stonewall
| By: Paul S. Cilwa | Occurred: 6/27/1969 |
Page Views: 3125 | |
| Topics: #History #LGBTRights #GayRights #BisexualRights #TranspersonRights #StonewallInn | |||
| How the LGBT movement got a kick start in a Greenwich Village bar. | |||
In 1950s and 1960s New York, there was an uneasy balance struck between gay people's need to socialize and the preference of straight society that there be no gay people. A result was the gay ghetto of Greenwich Village, with its multitude of gay bars, and periodic raids by the police of these bars. The feeling was not unlike that of a Russian Jew at the end of the 1800s, trying to live a normal life in a usually peaceful village, never knowing if this would be the night the Cossacks would come through and imprison or kill him and his family.
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