Stonewall 40th and Pride Unveil NYC’s Shameful Priorities

Written by Yasmine Farhang & Kenyon Farrow

Just months before the 40th anniversary of one of the most significant rebellions of poor and working class queer and transgender people (mostly of color), out-lesbian New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn announced the city’s proposal for rich gay tourists to commemorate this anniversary—shop till you drop. But for us at Queers for Economic Justice and our allies, our movement for sexual liberation is not for sale.

This announcement was made weeks after New York City refused funding to organizations that house and provide services to homeless queer youth, leaving several organizations on the brink of closing. Speaker Quinn made the City’s priorities clear when she announced that two million dollars would go to launching a gay tourism marketing campaign called Rainbow Pilgrimage. The campaign claims to commemorate the forty year anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion by imploring tourists, domestically and internationally, to connect with this proud lineage.

The campaign’s website encapsulates Stonewall in a nostalgic distant light; a movement of the past now best found in a culture of style, restaurants and hot new clubs that are profiled in the ad campaign. The past violence and homophobia is replaced by the promise of a New York experience akin to Sex In The City. Further denying the violence of that fateful night in June, the Rainbow Pilgrimage describes the West Village as having a “population [that] has matured and neighborhood scene [that] has quieted along with it.”

But that “quiet” has come at a cost to poor and working class queers today. What tourists may or may not see coming to NYC this Pride.

• Every day, Jay Toole, QEJ’s Shelter Director, works with scores of homeless LGBTQ adults in NYC’s shelters who face homophobia, transphobia, and isolation from queer community.

• The recent string of false arrests and police abuse gay men who were set-up for prostitution charges by undercover cops this past February in the East Village being led by the Coalition To Stop the Arrests.

• Several Black lesbians reported being beaten and harassed by NYPD in Bed-Stuy Brooklyn outside a party in May for which Audre Lorde Project’s Safe Outside the System Project has demanded accountability.

• The constant policing and harassment of queer and trans youth of color that FIERCE! continues to organize around.

• ·Due to the constant targeting of transgender people of color by police and prison guards, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project provides legal services and advocates on behalf of the safety of trans people in custody.

• Our Welfare Warriors project, led by Reina Gossett, is documenting the many ways LGBTQ folks in NYC continue to survive and thrive despite poverty, violence, and police brutality.

Rather than representing queer progress, the policies supporting the Rainbow Pilgrimage campaign (that the groups mentioned above are all fighting against) are frighteningly similar to the conditions that created the Stonewall Rebellion–Mayor Robert Wagner in the 1960’s launched a campaign to crack down on the city’s queer bars to clean up the city’s image for the 1964 World’s Fair. Similar to the raiding and closing of queer working class spaces and social services in the West Village over the last 10 years, Wagner revoked the liquor licenses of the bars, and undercover police officers regularly entrapped gay men, and arrested butch dykes, trans people, and drag queens for wearing clothing of the “opposite” gender.

Instead of commemorating the rich history of New York City’s movement for queer justice, the campaign tokenizes its leaders and landmarks and dilutes this history to a gimmick that will benefit corporations. Once the parade packs up this summer, and tourists leave with Rainbow Pilgrimage-themed t-shirts and mugs, those who need economic support more than ever – such as Sylvia’s Place and other resources for low-income and homeless queer folks and youth in New York City – will be right where they were, struggling to survive.

Struggle On,

Queers for Economic Justice