40 years after StonewallGay rights leaders look at movement's Jewish activism

Wednesday, September 16, 2009
by Adam Kredo
Staff Writer

http://www.washingtonjewishweek.com/print.asp?ArticleID=11482&SectionID=4&SubSectionID=53

Dana Beyer, the first transgender candidate to run for a seat in Maryland's House of Delegates, recalled that the riots were both a liberating and repelling experience. At the time, Beyer, then a man, was on a date with his future wife near the site of the row.

"I felt both attracted [to the riots] because this was my people doing it ... and repelled because I did not want to be outed," Beyer, who has since had transgender surgery, recalled to nearly 100 attendees.

Fighting for transgender rights as the vice president of both Equality Maryland and Maryland National Organization for Women, Beyer said that her earliest contact with Judaism was vexing.