Jesse's Journal: Stonewall at 40
http://miamiherald.typepad.com/gaysouthflorida/2009/05/jesses-journal-stonewall-at-40.htmlJESSE MONTEAGUDO
5/24/09
This is a much-revised version of an essay that first appeared in "The Weekly News" (TWN), South Florida's gay community newspaper. I also wrote about the Stonewall Riots in "Youth, Education, and Sexualities: An International Encyclopedia," edited by James T. Sears (Greenwood Press, 2005).
As an event and as a symbol, the Stonewall Riots of June 27-29 1969 continues to shape our lives. Forty years later, a gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender generation that was not even born in 1969 looks back fondly at "the Stonewall girls" as role models for GLBT activism and resistance. Even so, there are many young people today who do not know what "Stonewall" was, or what is represents, or why so many of our institutions and organizations are named after it.
