Page "Stonewall riots" Paragraph 67

Before the rebellion at the Stonewall Inn, homosexuals were, as historians Dudley Clendinen and Adam Nagourney write, a secret legion of people, known of but discounted, ignored, laughed at or despised.

And like the holders of a secret, they had an advantage which was a disadvantage, too, and which was true of no other minority group in the United States.

They were invisible.

Unlike African Americans, women, Native Americans, Jews, the Irish, Italians, Asians, Hispanics, or any other cultural group which struggled for respect and equal rights, homosexuals had no physical or cultural markings, no language or dialect which could identify them to each other, or to anyone else ...

But that night, for the first time, the usual acquiescence turned into violent resistance ... From that night the lives of millions of gay men and lesbians, and the attitude toward them of the larger culture in which they lived, began to change rapidly.

People began to appear in public as homosexuals, demanding respect.