The Stonewall Inn is a National Monument, but Lin Davis said what happened there almost 50 years ago isn’t necessarily widely known outside of the LGBTQ community.<\/p>\n
That’s part of the reason Davis, an out and proud lesbian, read her poem “Stonewall 50 When We Come To It,” at a celebration of the 50th anniversary of Stonewall held Saturday at McPhetres Hall.<\/p>\n
“I was handing out fliers (for the event), and it seemed a lot of people didn’t really know about it,” Davis said. “We ran into many people who didn’t know what Stonewall was. As a lesbian, it just is in my blood to get this history out because it’s not being taught.”<\/p>\n
The Stonewall Inn in New York City<\/a> was a flash point for a series of sometimes violent demonstrations by members of the LGBTQ community in June 1969. The events are often called the Stonewall riots, Stonewall uprising or Stonewall rebellion.<\/p>\n [Juneau observes Day of Transgender Remembrance<\/a>]<\/ins><\/p>\n The demonstrations followed a police raid on the inn, which was a known gay-friendly bar at the time, and were sparked when a transgender woman of color asking a gathered crowd to do something.<\/p>\n In the aftermath of Stonewall, the LGBTQ community coalesced, organized and generally became more visible.<\/p>\n By 1970 gay pride marches were held in large cities including New <\/a>York<\/a>, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago.<\/p>\n “It’s a huge milestone and right after, gay rights took off in this country and all around the world,” Davis said.<\/p>\n Since this year marks the 50th anniversary of the event, Juneau’s Stonewall 50<\/a> Project is making efforts to commemorate Stonewall with events throughout the year.<\/p>\n Roughly 100 people gathered for an evening of food, song, drag and dance for Saturday’s event.<\/p>\n “That’s a big part of the project to get the word out,” said Tayler Shae, Stonewall 50 Project co-coordinator. “We want to raise awareness.”<\/p>\n “Do something,” the cry that started the Stonewall provided a call to action and theme for the event.<\/p>\n Maureen Longworth, Davis’ wife and co-coordinator of the Stonewall 50 Project, made a simple case for why it’s important to remember Stonewall and continue to be driven toward action: “Because we don’t have equal rights in our state,” Longworth said. “We don’t have equal protection.”<\/p>\n [Transgender ban leads to uncertainty in Juneau<\/a>]<\/ins><\/p>\n While Anchorage and Juneau have ordinances <\/a>against LGBTQ discrimination, there is no statewide or federal law against refusing to rent to, lend to or employ LGBTQ people on the basis of their sexual identity.<\/p>\n The lack of such laws was lamented throughout Saturday’s event, and State Rep. Andy Josephson, D-Anchorage, called into the event to provide an update on a bill that would remedy that.<\/p>\n “The goal is to spread the virtues of the Juneau and Anchorage ordinances throughout the state,” Josephson said over speakerphone.<\/p>\n Twenty-one states and Washington D.C.<\/a> have already adopted such laws.<\/p>\n Last year, Josephson sponsored such a bill that gained some support but failed to advance to the House Rules <\/a>Committee<\/a>, and similar bills were sponsored in the past by former State Rep. Beth Kerttula.<\/p>\n This year, Josephson said he will be resuming the cause but was not overly optimistic of the odds of such legislation passing.<\/p>\n “It’s tough sledding out there,” Josephson said.<\/p>\n However, he said it’s important for members of the LGBTQ community and allies to continue to talk about the issues that matter to them, and there is value in maintaining a dialogue.<\/p>\n That message matched the words that started Stonewall and the night’s theme.<\/p>\n “Keep talking about it,” Longworth said. “Keep doing something.”<\/p>\n \u2022 Contact arts and culture reporter Ben Hohenstatt at (907)523-2243 or bhohenstatt@juneauempire.com. Follow him on Twitter @BenHohenstatt.<\/b><\/p>\n They did something. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":474,"featured_media":42978,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":11,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,4],"tags":[548],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-42977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home2","category-news","tag-lgbtq"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/474"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42977"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=42977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"