It’s a Matter of Pride

It was early in the morning of June 28, 1969. Summertime had arrived in New York City and the temperature was as high as the nightly excitement inside the hallowed halls of the Stonewall Inn. By this time, it will still take four years before the American Psychiatric Association (APA) removes homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) and a little more than two decades before the World Health Organisation officially declassifies it as a mental illness. But that evening, what could’ve been just another raid by the city police became a pivotal moment of resistance. The patrons of Stonewall began to fight back. Legend has it that it all started with the throwing of a single brick by Marsha P Johnson, beloved equality advocate in the community. Different eyewitness accounts put the brick on different people’s hands. Still, regardless of who threw it, what remains for certain is that the Stonewall riots catalysed a modern ideology and