New York City has been described as the gay capital of the world and the central node of the LGBTQ+ sociopolitical ecosystem, and is home to one of the world's largest and most prominent LGBTQ+ populations.[4] Brian Silverman, the author of Frommer's New York City from $90 a Day, wrote the city has "one of the world's largest, loudest, and most powerful LGBT communities", and "Gay and lesbian culture is as much a part of New York's basic identity as yellow cabs, high-rise buildings, and Broadway theatre".[5]LGBT travel guideQueer in the World states, "The fabulosity of Gay New York is unrivaled on Earth, and queer culture seeps into every corner of its five boroughs".[6]LGBT advocate and entertainer Madonna stated metaphorically, "Anyways, not only is New York City the best place in the world because of the queer people here. Let me tell you something, if you can make it here, then you must be queer."[7]
LGBT Americans in New York City constitute the largest self-identifying lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender, and queer communities by a significant margin in the United States, and the 1969 Stonewall riots in Greenwich Village are widely considered to be the genesis of the modern gay rights movement.[8] The New York metropolitan area has an estimated 756,000 LGBTQ+ residents—the most in the United States,[9] including the largest transgender population in the United States, estimated at 50,000 in 2018, concentrated in Manhattan and Queens.[10]
Charles Kaiser, author of The Gay Metropolis: The Landmark History of Gay Life in America, wrote that in the era after World War II, "New York City became the literal gay metropolis for hundreds of thousands of immigrants from both within and without the United States: the place they chose to learn how to live openly, honestly and without shame."[11] Comedian Jerrod Carmichael joked, "That's actually why I live here...if you say you're gay in New York, you can ride the bus for free and they just give you free pizza. if you say you're gay in New York, you get to host Saturday Night Live. This is the gayest thing you can possibly do. We're basically in an Andy Warhol fever dream right now."[12]
The location of the Stonewall Inn in relation to the narrow and diagonal streets that make small triangular and other oddly shaped city blocks in Greenwich Village
The Stonewall Inn, located at 51 and 53 Christopher Street, along with several other establishments in the city, was owned by the Genovese crime family.[13] In 1966, three members of the Mafia invested $3,500 to turn the Stonewall Inn into a gay bar, after it had been a restaurant and a nightclub geared toward heterosexuals. Once a week a police officer would collect envelopes of cash as a payoff; the Stonewall Inn had no liquor license.[14][15] It had no running water behind the bar—used glasses were run through tubs of water and immediately reused.[16] There were no fire exits, and the toilets overran consistently.[17] Though the bar was not used for prostitution, drug sales and other "cash transactions" took place. It was the only bar for gay men in New York City where dancing was allowed;[18] dancing was its main draw since its re-opening as a gay club.[19]
Visitors to the Stonewall Inn in 1969 were greeted by a bouncer who inspected them through a peephole in the door. The legal drinking age was 18, and to avoid unwittingly letting in undercover police (who were called "Lily Law", "Alice Blue Gown", or "Betty Badge"[20]), visitors would have to be known by the doorman, or look gay. The entrance fee on weekends was $3, for which the customer received two tickets that could be exchanged for two drinks. Patrons were required to sign their names in a book to prove that the bar was a private "bottle club", but rarely signed their real names. There were two dance floors in the Stonewall; the interior was painted black, making it very dark inside, with pulsing gel lights or black lights. If police were spotted, regular white lights were turned on, signaling that everyone should stop dancing or touching.[20]
In the rear of the bar was a smaller room frequented by "queens"; it was one of two bars where effeminate men who wore makeup and teased their hair (though dressed in men's clothing) could go.[21] Only a few transvestites, or men in full drag, were allowed in by the bouncers. The customers were "98 percent male" but a few lesbians sometimes came to the bar. Younger homeless adolescent males, who slept in nearby Christopher Park, would often try to get in so customers would buy them drinks.[22] The age of the clientele ranged between the upper teens and early thirties, and the racial mix was evenly distributed among white, Black, and Hispanic patrons.[21][23] Because of its even mix of people, its location, and the attraction of dancing, the Stonewall Inn was known by many as "the gay bar in the city".[24]
Police raids on gay bars were frequent, occurring on average once a month for each bar. Many bars kept extra liquor in a secret panel behind the bar, or in a car down the block, to facilitate resuming business as quickly as possible if alcohol was seized.[13] Bar management usually knew about raids beforehand due to police tip-offs, and raids occurred early enough in the evening that business could commence after the police had finished.[25]
During a typical raid, the lights were turned on, and customers were lined up and their identification cards checked. Those without identification or dressed in full drag were arrested; others were allowed to leave. Some of the men, including those in drag, used their draft cards as identification. Women were required to wear three pieces of feminine clothing, and would be arrested if found not wearing them. Employees and management of the bars were also typically arrested.[25] The period immediately before June 28, 1969, was marked by frequent raids of local bars—including a raid at the Stonewall Inn on the Tuesday before the riots[26]—and the closing of the Checkerboard, the Tele-Star, and two other clubs in Greenwich Village.[27]
On June 23, 2015, the Stonewall Inn was the first landmark in New York City to be recognized by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission on the basis of its status in LGBT history,[28] and on June 24, 2016, the Stonewall National Monument was named the first U.S. National Monument dedicated to the LGBTQ-rights movement.[8] The visitor center opened on June 28, 2024, as the first official national visitors center dedicated to the LGBTQ+ experience to open anywhere in the world. Numerous politicians and celebrities participated in the inauguration ceremonies.[29][30] and the New York City Subway's Christopher Street–Sheridan Square station was renamed the Christopher Street–Stonewall station on the same day.[29][31]
At 1:20a.m. on Saturday, June 28, 1969, four plainclothes policemen in dark suits, two patrol officers in uniform, and Detective Charles Smythe and Deputy Inspector Seymour Pine arrived at the Stonewall Inn's double doors and announced "Police! We're taking the place!"[33] Stonewall employees do not recall being tipped off that a raid was to occur that night, as was the custom. According to Duberman (p.194), there was a rumor that one might happen, but since it was much later than raids generally took place, Stonewall management thought the tip was inaccurate. Days after the raid, one of the bar owners complained that the tipoff had never come, and that the raid was ordered by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, who objected that there were no stamps on the liquor bottles, indicating the alcohol was bootlegged.
Historian David Carter presents information[34] indicating that the Mafia owners of the Stonewall and the manager were blackmailing wealthier customers, particularly those who worked in Lower Manhattan's Financial District. They appeared to be making more money from extortion than they were from liquor sales in the bar. Carter deduces that when the police were unable to receive kickbacks from blackmail and the theft of negotiable bonds (facilitated by pressuring gay Wall Street customers), they decided to close the Stonewall Inn permanently.
Two undercover policewomen and two undercover policemen had entered the bar earlier that evening to gather visual evidence, as the Public Morals Squad waited outside for the signal. Once inside, they called for backup from the Sixth Precinct using the bar's pay telephone. The music was turned off and the main lights were turned on. Approximately 205people were in the bar that night. Patrons who had never experienced a police raid were confused. A few who realized what was happening began to run for doors and windows in the bathrooms, but police barred the doors. As Michael Fader remembered,
Things happened so fast you kind of got caught not knowing. All of a sudden there were police there and we were told to all get in lines and to have our identification ready to be led out of the bar.
The raid did not go as planned. Standard procedure was to line up the patrons, check their identification, and have female police officers take customers dressed as women to the bathroom to verify their gender, upon which any men dressed as women would be arrested. Those dressed as women that night refused to go with the officers. Men in line began to refuse to produce their identification. The police decided to take everyone present to the police station, after separating those cross-dressing in a room in the back of the bar. Maria Ritter, then known as Steve to her family, recalled, "My biggest fear was that I would get arrested. My second biggest fear was that my picture would be in a newspaper or on a television report in my mother's dress!"[35] Both patrons and police recalled that a sense of discomfort spread very quickly, spurred by police who began to assault some of the lesbians by "feeling some of them up inappropriately" while frisking them.[36]
Transgender contribution
Despite playing a significant role in fighting for LGBT equality during the period of the Stonewall Riots and thereafter[37] the transgender community in New York City had previously felt marginalized and neglected by the gay community.[37] Since then, and especially during the 21st century, New York City's transgender community has grown in size and prominence,[38] reaching an estimated 50,000 in 2018.[10] Brooklyn Liberation March, the largest transgender rights demonstration in LGBTQ history, took place on June 14, 2020, stretching from Grand Army Plaza to Fort Greene, Brooklyn, focused on supporting Black transgender lives.[39][40]
New York City has been estimated to have become home to over 270,000 self-identifying gay and bisexual individuals,[48]higher than San Francisco and Los Angeles combined.
Lonely Planet New York City stated that of the demographics, the city's LGBT population has "one of the largest disposable incomes",[49] encompassing professionals including physicians, attorneys, engineers, scientists, financiers, and journalists, as well as those in the entertainment industry, fashion design, and realty. Conversely, New York City is also a highly popular LGBT tourist destination,[50] and the city actively courts LGBTQ tourism.[51]
The Manhattan neighborhoods of Greenwich Village and Harlem were home to a sizable homosexual population after World War I, when men and women who had served in the military took advantage of the opportunity to settle in larger cities. The enclaves of gays and lesbians, described by a newspaper story as "short-haired women and long-haired men", developed a distinct subculture through the following two decades.[54]
Prohibition inadvertently benefited gay establishments, as drinking alcohol was pushed underground along with other behaviors considered immoral. New York City passed laws against homosexuality in public and private businesses, but because alcohol was in high demand, speakeasies and impromptu drinking establishments were so numerous and temporary that authorities were unable to police them all.[55] However, police raids happened, resulting in their closure, such as the Eve's Hangout at 129 MacDougal Street, after the deportation of Eva Kotchever for obscenity.[56]
The social repression of the 1950s resulted in a cultural revolution in Greenwich Village. A cohort of poets, later named the Beat poets, wrote about the evils of the social organization at the time, glorifying anarchy, drugs, and hedonistic pleasures over unquestioning social compliance, consumerism, and closed mindedness. Of them, Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs—both Greenwich Village residents—also wrote bluntly and honestly about homosexuality. Their writings attracted sympathetic liberal-minded people, as well as homosexuals looking for a community.[57]
By the early 1960s, a campaign to rid New York City of gay bars was in full effect by order of Mayor Robert F. Wagner, Jr., who was concerned about the image of the city in preparation for the 1964 World's Fair. The city revoked the liquor licenses of the bars, and undercover police officers worked to entrap as many homosexual men as possible.[58]Entrapment usually consisted of an undercover officer who found a man in a bar or public park, engaged him in conversation; if the conversation headed toward the possibility that they might leave together—or the officer bought the man a drink—he was arrested for solicitation. One story in the New York Post described an arrest in a gym locker room, where the officer grabbed his crotch, moaning, and a man who asked him if he was all right was arrested.[59] Few lawyers would defend cases as undesirable as these, and some of those lawyers kicked back their fees to the arresting officer.[60] The annual New York Halloween Parade in Greenwich Village is the world's largest Halloween parade, and has its roots in New York's queer community, standing in as an expression of LGBT pride, before the formal NYC Pride March was born.[53]
The Mattachine Society succeeded in getting newly elected Mayor John Lindsay to end the campaign of police entrapment in New York City. They had a more difficult time with the New York State Liquor Authority (SLA). While no laws prohibited serving homosexuals, courts allowed the SLA discretion in approving and revoking liquor licenses for businesses that might become "disorderly".[61] Despite the high population of gays and lesbians who called Greenwich Village home, very few places existed, other than bars, where they were able to congregate openly without being harassed or arrested. In 1966, the New York Mattachine Society held a "sip-in" at a Greenwich Village bar named Julius, which was frequented by gay men, to illustrate the discrimination homosexuals faced.[62]
None of the bars frequented by gays and lesbians were owned by gay people in the 1960s. Almost all of them were owned and controlled by organized crime, who treated the regulars poorly, watered down the liquor, and overcharged for drinks. However, they also paid off police to prevent frequent raids.[16]
Greenwich Village contained the world's oldest gay and lesbian bookstore, Oscar Wilde Bookshop, founded in 1967 but permanently closed in 2009 citing the recession and the rise of online booksellers. The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center – best known as simply "The Center" – has occupied the former Food & Maritime Trades High School at 208 West 13th Street since 1984. In 2006, the Village was the scene of an assault involving seven lesbians and a straight man that sparked appreciable media attention, with strong statements both defending and attacking the parties. In June 2015, thousands gathered in front of the Stonewall Inn to celebrate the ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court affirming same-sex marriage in all fifty U.S. states, while in June 2016, thousands gathered similarly in vigil for the Orlando Pulse Nightclub massacre.[63]
Gay Street, at the corner of Waverly Place, in Greenwich Village
In February 2017, thousands protested at the Stonewall National Monument against the proposed policies of the administration of U.S. president Donald J. Trump affecting both LGBTQ individuals and international immigrants, including those holding the intersection of these identities.[64] In June 2019, the New York City Commission on Human Rights partnered with MasterCard International to commemorate the Stonewall 50 - WorldPride NYC 2019 milestone by planting a new street sign pan-inclusive for sexual orientations and gender identities at the intersection of Gay Street and Christopher Street in the West Village, and renaming that portion of Gay Street as Acceptance Street.[65]
Chelsea in Manhattan is one of the most gay-friendly neighborhoods in New York City.[66] In the 1990s, many gay people moved to the Chelsea neighborhood from the Greenwich Village neighborhood as a less expensive alternative; subsequent to this movement, house prices in Chelsea have increased dramatically to rival the West Village area of Greenwich Village. While New York was a latecomer to the leather and kink fetish movement, this subculture is now burgeoning in the city, originating in Chelsea and eventually expanding to Brooklyn and Queens.
Brooklyn is home to a large and growing number of same-sex couples. Same-sex marriages in New York were legalized on June 24, 2011, and were authorized to take place beginning 30 days thereafter.[67] The Park Slope neighborhood spearheaded the popularity of Brooklyn among lesbians, and Prospect Heights has an LGBT residential presence.[50] Numerous neighborhoods have since become home to LGBT communities.
Adjacent Elmhurst and Jackson Heights, Queens, are focal hubs for the transgender community of New York City and collectively constitute the largest transgender hub in the world. The Queens Pride Parade is held in Jackson Heights each year.[10]Astoria has an emerging LGBT presence.[50] Queens is also becoming a destination for LGBT individuals priced out of still more expensive housing in Brooklyn.
Gayborhoods have also emerged across the Hudson River from Manhattan in the U.S. state of New Jersey, which is now home to more gay villages per square mile than any other state. Some of the most prominent gayborhoods in New Jersey include Jersey City,[69]Asbury Park, Maplewood,[70]Montclair, and Lambertville. Trenton, the state capital of New Jersey, elected Reed Gusciora, its first openly gay mayor, in 2018,[71] and Jennifer Williams, New Jersey's first openly transgender city councilmember, in 2022.[72]
In June 2018, suburban Maplewood, New Jersey, unveiled permanent rainbow-colored crosswalks to celebrate LGBTQ pride, a feature displayed by only a few other towns in the world,[73] including Rahway, New Jersey, which unveiled its own rainbow-colored crosswalks in June 2019.[74] In January 2019, New Jersey GovernorPhil Murphy signed legislation mandating LGBTQ-inclusive educational curriculum in schools.[75] In February 2019, New Jersey began allowing a neutral or non-binary gender choice on birth certificates, while New York City already had this provision.[76]
The following constitutes an incomplete list of gay villages in the New York metropolitan area as of 2023:
Politics in New York City are mainly liberal. Rosenberg and Dunford stated that this political standpoint had historically been "generally beneficial to the gay community".[50]
In New York City, New York City Republican Party political administrations actively court LGBT voters.[50] LGBT voters were 3.4% of New York City's electorate in 1989.[85]
In the mid-1970s, LGBT participation in New York City politics began. In the 1977 Mayor of New York City elections, Edward Koch was the preferred candidate; there had been speculation that Koch was homosexual. However, Koch associated with religious figures opposed to homosexuality and did not pass LGBT civil rights bills, and therefore in 1981, Frank Barbaro became the candidate favored by the LGBT political groups.[86]
In the 1985 mayoral election, Koch had almost no support; Donald P. Haider-Markel, the author of Gay and Lesbian Americans and Political Participation: A Reference Handbook, wrote that Koch's "actions on AIDS seemed inadequate at best".[87] In the 1989 mayoral election, David Dinkins received support from the LGBT community.[85] Since then, every mayor has received support from the LGBT community, which included Rudy Giuliani and Mike Bloomberg.
Services & Advocacy for GLBT Elders (SAGE) is the country's largest and oldest organization dedicated to improving the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. SAGE is located at 305 Seventh Avenue, 15th Floor NYC, NY 10001. SAGE has expanded throughout New York City, with additional centers now located in Harlem, the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Staten Island.[92]
The Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance is a New York performing and visual art workshop space and performance venue located in The Bronx. Co-founded in 1998 by Arthur Aviles, dancer and choreographer who performed with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, and Charles Rice-Gonzales, a writer, LGBT activist, and publicist. Focusing on works exploring the margins of Latino and LGBTQ cultures. The programs at BAAD! are made up of dancers, LGBTQ visual artists, women, and artists of color.[93]
The Bureau of General Services – Queer Division (BGSQD) is a queer cultural center, bookstore, and event space hosted by The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center in New York City.[94]
The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art (LLM) is located in Soho, Lower Manhattan,[98] and is the only museum in the world dedicated to artwork documenting the LGBTQ+ experience.[97]
The Lesbian Herstory Archives is located in a townhouse in Brooklyn. It has 12,000 photographs, over 11,000 books, 1,300 periodical titles, and 600 videos. There are also thousands of miscellaneous items.[98]
The Bronx Community Pride Center was previously located in the Bronx.[98] The city government had funded the nonprofit agency. Lisa Winters, who headed the agency from 2004 until 2010, had stolen $143,000 from the agency; she was ultimately fired. She was convicted of stealing the funds and misusing a credit card belonging to another person. In April 2013 she received a prison sentence of two concurrent terms, each two to six years. Winters' theft resulted in the closure of the agency.[100]
The NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project[103] maps New York City's LGBT history, neighborhood by neighborhood; placing the city's LGBT history in a geographical context. Its interactive map features neighborhood sites important to NYC LGBT history in fields such as the arts, literature, and social justice, in addition to important gathering spaces, such as bars, clubs, and community centers.
The NYC Pride March, including the rally; PrideFest (the festival); and the Dance on the Pier, are the main events of Pride Week in New York City LGBT Pride Week. Since 1984, Heritage of Pride (HOP) has been the producer and organizer of pride events in New York City.[105] The 2017 New York City Pride parade was the first in its history scheduled to be broadcast and streamed live.[106][107]
Stonewall 50 – WorldPride NYC 2019 was the largest international Pride celebration in history, produced by Heritage of Pride and enhanced through a partnership with the I ❤ NY program's LGBT division, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, with 150,000 participants and five million spectators attending in Manhattan alone.[108] The events of 2019 were held throughout June, which is traditionally Pride month in New York City and worldwide, under the auspices of the annual NYC Pride March.
History of the New York City Pride March
Early on the morning of Saturday, June 28, 1969, gay (LGBT) individuals rioted following a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar at 53 Christopher Street, in the West Village of Lower Manhattan. This riot and further protests and rioting over the following nights were the watershed moment in modern LGBT Rights Movement and the impetus for organizing LGBT pride marches on a much larger public scale.
On November 2, 1969, Craig Rodwell, his partner Fred Sargeant, Ellen Broidy, and Linda Rhodes proposed the first pride march to be held in New York City by way of a resolution at the Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations (ERCHO) meeting in Philadelphia.[109]
That the Annual Reminder, to be more relevant, reach a greater number of people, and encompass the ideas and ideals of the larger struggle in which we are engaged-that of our fundamental human rights-be moved both in time and location.
We propose that a demonstration be held annually on the last Saturday in June in New York City to commemorate the 1969 spontaneous demonstrations on Christopher Street and this demonstration be called CHRISTOPHER STREET LIBERATION DAY. No dress or age regulations shall be made for this demonstration.
We also propose that we contact Homophile organizations throughout the country and suggest that they hold parallel demonstrations on that day. We propose a nationwide show of support.[110][111][112][113]
All attendees to the ERCHO meeting in Philadelphia voted for the march except for Mattachine Society of New York, which abstained.[110] Members of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) attended the meeting and were seated as guests of Rodwell's group, Homophile Youth Movement in Neighborhoods (HYMN).[114]
Meetings to organize the march began in early January at Rodwell's apartment in 350 Bleecker Street.[115] At first there was difficulty getting some of the major New York organizations like Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) to send representatives. Craig Rodwell and his partner Fred Sargeant, Ellen Broidy, Michael Brown, Marty Nixon, and Foster Gunnison Jr. of The Mattachine Society made up the core group of the CSLD Umbrella Committee (CSLDUC). For initial funding, Gunnison served as treasurer and sought donations from the national homophile organizations and sponsors, while Sargeant solicited donations via the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop customer mailing list and Nixon worked to gain financial support from GLF in his position as treasurer for that organization.[116][117]
Other mainstays of the organizing committee were Judy Miller, Jack Waluska, Steve Gerrie and Brenda Howard of GLF.[118] Believing that more people would turn out for the march on a Sunday, and so as to mark the date of the start of the Stonewall uprising, the CSLDUC scheduled the date for the first march for Sunday, June 28, 1970.[119] With Dick Leitsch's replacement as president of Mattachine NY by Michael Kotis in April 1970, opposition to the march by The Mattachine Society ended.[120]
There was little open animosity, and some bystanders applauded when a tall, pretty girl carrying a sign "I am a Lesbian" walked by.
—The New York Times coverage of Gay Liberation Day, 1970[121]
Christopher Street Liberation Day on June 28, 1970, marked the first anniversary of the Stonewall riots with an assembly on Christopher Street and the first LGBT Pride march in U.S. history, covering the 51blocks to Central Park. The march took less than half the scheduled time due to excitement, but also due to wariness about walking through the city with gay banners and signs. Although the parade permit was delivered only two hours before the start of the march, the marchers encountered little resistance from onlookers.[122]The New York Times reported (on the front page) that the marchers took up the entire street for about 15city blocks.[121] Reporting by The Village Voice was positive, describing "the out-front resistance that grew out of the police raid on the Stonewall Inn one year ago".[123]
The world's largest dyke march, commemorating lesbian pride and culture, also takes place annually in June, based in Manhattan.[125][126] The March typically includes a Dykes on Bikes motorcycle rally.
The Drag March takes place on Friday night as a kick-off to NYC Pride weekend.[134] The event starts in Tompkins Square Park and ends in front of the Stonewall Inn; it is purposefully non-corporate, punk, inclusive, and largely leaderless.[127]
In 2019, the 25th Drag March coincided with Stonewall 50 – WorldPride NYC 2019, anticipated to be the largest international LGBTQ event in history,[135] with many as four million people attending in Manhattan alone; the Drag March will take place June 28.[136]
New York City's drag culture and ballroom culture have both displayed a prominent presence within the overall LGBTQ culture of New York City itself. Both the film Paris is Burning from 1990 and the more recent television series Pose have portrayed the fabric of ballroom culture. RuPaul's DragCon NYC is known as the world's largest celebration of drag culture and attracts over 100,000 attendees over multiple-day festivities annually.[125][137]
The Queer Liberation March is a protest march which was inaugurated in its current form on June 30, 2019, coincident with Stonewall 50 - WorldPride NYC 2019, marking the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots.[142][143] This march was created as a counterprotest to the corporate-focused sponsoring and participation requirements of the larger New York City Pride March, the result being a dueling major Manhattan LGBTQ march on the same day.[144][145]
The march route proceeds uptown on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan, following the path of the fledgling first one, which in 1970 marked the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.[146] and was organized by the Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee.[147] The Queer Liberation March proceeds in the opposite direction of the New York City Pride March, which courses downtown on Fifth Avenue through most of its route.
The film Paris is Burning documents the cultural contributions of gay, bisexual and trans New Yorkers mostly from Harlem; especially those of color coming from mostly Black or Latino backgrounds. Much of the documentary centers around drag culture. African American and Latino members of the LGBT community in the 80s invented dances such as vogueing and coined terms such as 'reading' and 'throwing shade.' The independent documentary How Do I Look and the TV series Pose on FX expanded further upon the subject matter of and individuals appearing in Paris is Burning.
Celebrity-featured New York City LGBTQ-rights galas and festivities
New York City hosts a variety of LGBTQ-rights galas annually. The following is a list of some of these galas featuring the presence of celebrities:
June 2019, surprise performance at the Stonewall Inn by Taylor Swift[157]
In 2023, Billy Porter and Randy Wicker lead NYC Pride under the theme "Strength in Solidarity," combining its protest origins and celebration, with Christina Aguilera at Pride Island.[158]
Historically, the St. Patrick's Day Parade has not allowed openly LGBT groups to participate. However, the organizers announced that in 2015, the first LGBT group would be permitted to have a float,[160] and LGBT representation has been included in the annual New York St. Patrick's Day Parade since then.
New York City Black Pride is held annually in August.[161]
New York City's Latino Pride Center was established in June 2013 as the first Latino organization in the U.S. fully devoted to providing health and human services to the Latino gay community.[162]
Rainbow Book Fair, the largest LGBT book event in the U.S., is held annually every Spring in New York City.[163]
The progressive Jewish congregation Kolot Chayeinu (Voices of our Lives) was founded by social justice activists Rabbi Ellen Lippmann and Cantor Lisa Segal. The current clergies are members of the LGBTQ community and a large portion of the congregation are members or affiliated with the LGBTQ community.
The Stonewall riots, also known as the Stonewall uprising, Stonewall rebellion, Stonewall revolution, or simply Stonewall, were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. Although the demonstrations were not the first time American homosexuals fought back against government-sponsored persecution of sexual minorities, the Stonewall riots marked a new beginning for the gay rights movement in the United States and around the world.
The Stonewall Inn is a gay bar and recreational tavern at 53 Christopher Street in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It was the site of the 1969 Stonewall riots, which led to the gay liberation movement and the modern fight for LGBT rights in the United States. When the riots occurred, Stonewall was one of the relatively few gay bars in New York City. The original gay bar occupied two structures at 51–53 Christopher Street, which were built as horse stables in the 1840s.
Sylvia Rivera was an American gay liberation and transgender rights activist who was also a noted community worker in New York. Rivera, who identified as a drag queen for most of her life and later as a transgender person, participated in demonstrations with the Gay Liberation Front.
Heritage of Pride (HOP), doing business as NYC Pride, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that plans and produces the official New York City LGBTQIA+ Pride Week events each June. HOP began working on the events in 1984, taking on the work previously done by the Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee organizers of the first NYC Pride March in 1970. HOP also took over responsibility for the operations of NYC's Pride Festival and Pride Rally. It was that first march that brought national attention to 1969's Stonewall Riots. The late sixties saw numerous protests and riots across the United States on many social injustices and from general political unrest including the war in Vietnam.
The NYC Pride March is an annual event celebrating the LGBTQ community in New York City. The largest pride parade and the largest pride event in the world, the NYC Pride March attracts tens of thousands of participants and millions of sidewalk spectators each June, and carries spiritual and historical significance for the worldwide LGBTQIA+ community and its advocates. Entertainer Madonna stated in 2024, "Aside from my birthday, New York Pride is the most important day of the year." The route through Lower Manhattan traverses south on Fifth Avenue, through Greenwich Village, passing the Stonewall National Monument, site of the June 1969 riots that launched the modern movement for LGBTQ+ rights.
Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) was a gay, gender non-conforming and transvestite street activist organization founded in 1970 by Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson, subculturally-famous New York City drag queens of color. STAR was a radical political collective that also provided housing and support to homeless LGBT youth and sex workers in Lower Manhattan. Rivera and Johnson were the "mothers" of the household, and funded the organization largely through sex work. STAR is considered by many to be a groundbreaking organization in the queer liberation movement and a model for other organizations.
LGBTQ pride is the promotion of the self-affirmation, dignity, equality, and increased visibility of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people as a social group. Pride, as opposed to shame and social stigma, is the predominant outlook that bolsters most LGBT rights movements. Pride has lent its name to LGBT-themed organizations, institutes, foundations, book titles, periodicals, a cable TV channel, and the Pride Library.
Craig L. Rodwell was an American gay rights activist known for founding the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop on November 24, 1967 - the first bookstore devoted to gay and lesbian authors - and as the prime mover for the creation of the New York City gay pride demonstration. Rodwell, who was already an activist when he participated in the 1969 Stonewall uprising, is considered by some to be the leading gay rights activist in the early, pre-Stonewall, homophile movement of the 1960s.
Atlanta Pride, also colloquially called the Atlanta Gay Pride Festival, is a week-long annual lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBTQ) pride festival held in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1971, it is one of the oldest and largest pride festivals in the United States. According to the Atlanta Pride Committee, as of 2017, attendance had continually grown to around 300,000. Originally held in June, Atlanta Pride has been held in October every year since 2008, typically on a weekend closest to National Coming Out Day.
New York state, a state in the northeastern United States, has one of the largest and the most prominent LGBTQ populations in the world. Brian Silverman, the author of Frommer's New York City from $90 a Day, wrote that New York City has "one of the world's largest, loudest, and most powerful" LGBT communities", and "Gay and lesbian culture is as much a part of New York's basic identity as yellow cabs, high-rises, and Broadway theatre". LGBT travel guide Queer in the World states, "The fabulosity of Gay New York is unrivaled on Earth, and queer culture seeps into every corner of its five boroughs". LGBT Americans in New York City constitute by significant margins the largest self-identifying lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities in the United States, and the 1969 Stonewall riots in Greenwich Village are widely considered to be the genesis of the modern gay rights movement.
The National LGBTQ Task Force is an American social justice advocacy non-profit organizing the grassroots power of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community. Also known as The Task Force, the organization supports action and activism on behalf of LGBTQ people and advances a progressive vision of liberation. The past executive director was Rea Carey from 2008-2021 and the current executive director is Kierra Johnson, who took over the position in 2021 to become the first Black woman to head the organization.
The Gay Liberation Monument is part of the Stonewall National Monument, which commemorates the Stonewall uprising of 1969. Created in 1980, the Gay Liberation sculpture by American artist George Segal was the first piece of public art dedicated to gay rights and solidarity for LGBTQ individuals, while simultaneously commemorating the ongoing struggles of the community. The monument was dedicated on June 23, 1992, as part of the dedication of the Stonewall National Monument as a whole.
The following outline offers an overview and guide to LGBTQ topics:
Queens Liberation Front (QLF) was a homophile group primarily focused on transvestite rights advocacy organization in New York City. QLF was formed in 1969 and active in the 1970s. They published Drag Queens: A Magazine About the Transvestite beginning in 1971. The Queens Liberation Front collaborated with a number of other LGBTQ+ activist groups, including the Gay Activists Alliance and the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries.
The Queens Pride Parade and Multicultural Festival is the second oldest and second-largest pride parade in New York City. It is held annually in the neighborhood of Jackson Heights, located in the New York City borough of Queens. The parade was founded by Daniel Dromm and Maritza Martinez to raise the visibility of the LGBTQ community in Queens and memorialize Jackson Heights resident Julio Rivera. Queens also serves as the largest transgender hub in the Western hemisphere and is the most ethnically diverse urban area in the world.
The Queer Liberation March is an annual LGBT protest march in Manhattan, organized by the Reclaim Pride Coalition as an anti-corporate alternative to the NYC Pride March.
Stonewall 50 – WorldPride NYC 2019 was a series of LGBTQ events and celebrations in June 2019, marking the 50th anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall riots. It was also the first time WorldPride was held in the United States. Held primarily in the metropolitan New York City area, the theme for the celebrations and educational events was "Millions of moments of Pride." The celebration was the largest LGBTQ event in history, with an official estimate of 5 million attending Pride weekend in Manhattan alone, with an estimated 4 million in attendance at the NYC Pride March. The twelve-hour parade included 150,000 pre-registered participants among 695 groups.
The National LGBTQ Wall of Honor is a memorial wall in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City, dedicated to LGBTQ "pioneers, trailblazers, and heroes". Located inside the Stonewall Inn, the wall is part of the Stonewall National Monument, the first U.S. National Monument dedicated to the country's LGBTQ rights and history. The first fifty inductees were unveiled June 27, 2019, as a part of events marking the 50th anniversary of Stonewall. Five honorees are added annually.
The New York City Drag March, or NYC Drag March, is an annual drag protest and visibility march taking place in June, the traditional LGBTQ pride month in New York City. Organized to coincide ahead of the NYC Pride March, both demonstrations commemorate the 1969 riots at the Stonewall Inn, widely considered the pivotal event sparking the gay liberation movement, and the modern fight for LGBTQ rights.
Frédéric André Sargeant is a French-American gay rights activist and a former lieutenant with the Stamford, Connecticut Police Department. He participated in each of the nights of the 1969 Stonewall riots and was one of the four co-founders of the first NYC Pride March march in Manhattan in 1970. He was vice-chairman of the Homophile Youth Movement at the time.
↑ Silverman, Brian. Frommer's New York City from $90 a Day (Volume 7 of Frommer's $ A Day). John Wiley & Sons, January 21, 2005. ISBN0764588354, 9780764588358. p. 28.
↑ White, Alexandria (June 17, 2019). "Mastercard launches True Name cards to make paying with credit cards easier for trans and non-binary communities". CNBC. Retrieved June 17, 2019. Mastercard also partnered with the New York City Commission on Human Rights to create an all-inclusive version of the iconic street sign at the corner of Gay and Christopher Streets in New York City's West Village, adding rainbow of street signs for each letter in the LGBTQIA+ acronym. This is just in time for WorldPride — which takes place in New York City this June — and the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.
1 2 Haider-Markel, Donald P. Gay and Lesbian Americans and Political Participation: A Reference Handbook (Political participation in America). ABC-CLIO, January 1, 2002. ISBN1576072568, 9781576072561. p. 145.
↑ Haider-Markel, Donald P. Gay and Lesbian Americans and Political Participation: A Reference Handbook (Political participation in America). ABC-CLIO, January 1, 2002. ISBN1576072568, 9781576072561. p. 144.
↑ Haider-Markel, Donald P. Gay and Lesbian Americans and Political Participation: A Reference Handbook (Political participation in America). ABC-CLIO, January 1, 2002. ISBN1576072568, 9781576072561. p. 144-145.
↑ "Home". NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project. Retrieved August 30, 2019.
↑ Dawn Ennis (May 24, 2017). "ABC will broadcast New York's pride parade live for the first time". LGBTQ Nation. Archived from the original on July 28, 2017. Retrieved September 26, 2018. Never before has any TV station in the entertainment and news media capital of the world carried what organizer boast is the world's largest Pride parade live on TV.
↑ Martinez, Arianna. "Queer Cosmopolis: The Evolution of Jackson Heights." In Planning and LGBTQ Communities: The Need for Inclusive Spaces. Ed. Petra L. Doan. New York: Routledge, 2015.
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