Also read: LGBT, civil rights, gay rights

Enough was enough already!

After constant mistreatment and being subjected to police raids for their sexual orientation and identity, several LGBT patrons of the Stonewall Inn in New York City's Greenwich Village decided to fight back. On June 28, 1969, 40 years ago this weekend, a handful of patrons attacked officers who attempted to arrest them for visiting one of the few pubs that welcomed the LGBT community, setting off a six-day uprising that marked the beginning of the LGBT movement.

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Why was the NYPD harassing pub-goers in the first place? Because they could. At the time, there were no laws to protect LGBT people. Although Greenwich Village is now one of the most LGBT-populated neighborhoods in America--and is still home to the Stonewall Inn--it wasn't as welcoming in 1969.

But the Stonewall Inn was different. It was owned and operated by the mafia, which didn't mind offering a place for LGBT people to drink, dance and have a good time as long as they could pay. The Stonewall charged exorbitant admission fees and prices for drinks (often served in dirty mugs, report patrons).

Why would anyone patronize such a place? Forty years ago, it was illegal to engage in anything "gay," including dancing with someone of the same sex. (Only Illinois permitted some public expression of sexual orientation and identity.) So the Stonewall Inn offered the LGBT community a safe, inclusive environment where people were free to be themselves, including wearing the clothing of their choice and sitting with people of the same sex.

That changed one early morning in June 1969. Miss Major, now 67, is a transgender woman who was there and recalls the events that led up to the Stonewall Inn riots. She and several girlfriends had gone to the Inn, like many in the LGBT community, to mourn the recent burial of LGBT icon Judy Garland.

"We were there for a while, having a good time, and the lights came on," she says. "When the lights came on, we knew the police were there. So anyone who was dancing with someone of the same sex had to immediately separate. And for the cross-dressed, we needed to have at least three male articles of clothing on if we were wearing a dress." Otherwise, she says, they would be arrested.

As was typical once the police showed up, everyone filed out of the Stonewall Inn and either scattered or was thrown into the paddy wagon to be arrested. Although police sources say the raids on Stonewall that night were prompted by the mafia's presence--not the LGBT community's--this time, recalls Miss Major, things were different. The Stonewall patrons were mad and weren't going to settle for being thrown out.

"I knew something was different when the police were retreating back into the pub," Miss Major says.

The fighting ensued and, for the next several nights, the LGBT community and straight allies, numbering in the several hundreds, fought back. "We had a sense of empowerment that we had won a victory," Miss Major says. "We stayed uptown afterward for a while, but we found our place--and it didn't matter what the guise was."

Was Stonewall a victory? What are the solutions?

Timothy Duffy is a New York City police detective who has spent nearly two decades patrolling the streets of Greenwich Village and is the department's LGBT liaison. As an officer who wasn't on the force in 1969, he says he sees marked improvement within his department.

"As a police department as a whole, we've come a long way," Duffy told NPR's Brian Lehrer. "I'm an out police officer for 18 years in the Village. It's been an interesting ride to see how this has gone. Cops have had sensitivity training and for the old-timers, the ones who've been on the job a long while, even their perspectives have changed about the gay community."

But Robert Reid-Pharr, a City University of New York professor, differs.

"We've crossed the Stonewall road and have gained some equality, but there's still hostility from police," Reid-Pharr told Lehrer. "In some neighborhoods, it's OK to be gay. In others, it's really not OK. So there are issues we haven't really moved too far on. A gay man's sexuality is a huge deal (in some New York neighborhoods). We haven't reached utopia yet, and we're a long way away from it."

David Carter, a Stonewall historian who wrote "Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution," says things for the LGBT community haven't improved at all since Stonewall, at least on the federal level. "Congress has not passed a law that would even protect a person from being fired for being gay," he says. "I think it's time for people and our supporters to get more angry, get more organized and put some real pressure on Congress.

"[Politicians] take our money, our votes, our volunteer time--and baby, they have not delivered," he continues. "They march in our parade, but only after it passes St. Patrick's Cathedral. If they're with us, get in the parade in the beginning of the parade. Otherwise, you're insulting the memory of Stonewall."

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