The Stonewall generation looks back

[WillParkinson]

The Stonewall generation looks back


It’s been a grueling journey from the deep closet to the equal-marriage battles of today. But it’s also remarkable that that journey has taken place within the space of typical American’s lifetime.

Older LGBT people have seen—and created—enormous changes in our society. A timeline produced by SAGE for the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall rebellion points out that a lesbian who is 75 years old today “would have been 39 before the American Psychiatric Association finally removed homosexuality from its list of psychiatric disorders,” and an 80-year-old transgender woman would have been 23 the year the Daily News reported on Christine Jorgensen’s successful sex-reassignment surgery with a headline that read ‘Ex-GI Becomes Blond Beauty.”

This June, SAGE is sponsoring a reunion of Stonewall-era activists who are continuing the struggle for LGBT rights, giving them an opportunity to reflect not just on how far we’ve come as a community but the critical roles they played in the struggle.

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