Stonewall 1969: We are Believers, Fighters, and Lovers

By Dirk Meyer

These days we can invent an app, start a blog, and sell stuff online. But if we are writers then we need to have that one book, and if it is real enough and honest enough and if it reflects everything that made us, where we come from, who we knew and the history of our community then we may have a chance connecting with everyone else. And maybe that's our ticket to everything, and perhaps that's what this book "Stonewall 1969" stands for.
In 2020 people are still fighting against racism and discrimination of African Americans in the United States and members of the LGBTQ community remember a time in their life when all their happy endings were stolen until Stonewall 1969 happened. Vogue Magazine recently published a feature about the 20 milestones, which defined the LGBTQ rights movement, but things really changed for us when members of the LGBTQ community had enough and decided to fight back against cops on Christopher Street in New York City on that night in June 1969.
"Stonewall 1969" tells the story of heroes standing up against the government and police enforcement not just on that significant night in summer 1969, but also the years before and after the Stonewall Uprising.
The author's new book takes its readers on an exciting journey; it remembers the dark times before the Stonewall Riots when gay people found themselves being harassed and arrested by cops, prosecuted and imprisoned, fired from jobs, and disowned by families. But the book also celebrates, how much the community has achieved since then and how relevant it is to continue this fight in times of the Trump/Pence Presidency.
"Stonewall 1969" will also continue with Derek Meyer's and Josh Fenton`s story, whose lives were significantly impacted by the riots. And while the book discusses the question, if the good always wins and if there are happy endings for us out there, it reminds the rest of us of the importance of believing, fighting, and loving in life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jul 11, 2020
• ISBN: 9781716749414

Book preview

Stonewall 1969

We are Believers, Fighters, and Lovers

Stonewall 1969

We are Believers, Fighters, and Lovers

by

Derek Meyer

Copyright © 2020 by Dirk Meyer

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

First Printing:             2020

ISBN                   978-1-71674-941-1

Author:                  Derek Meyer

Email:                  [e-mail]

Cover/Illustration:       Derek Meyer, Rex Lott

About the Author

Author Derek Meyer grew up in Germany and moved to London in 2001, after completing his studies. He eventually fulfilled his dream and relocated to New York in 2009.

Derek Meyer has worked for different investment banks in both London and New York and has been actively involved in fundraising and supporting the fight against AIDS since his arrival in the States. Derek lives in Chelsea, Manhattan and welcomed his daughter in his life in December 2014 and his son in June 2020.

Meyer has been a keen supporter of several dance companies including the Debbie Allen Dance Academy in Los Angeles and the New York City Ballet with his daughter currently attending ballet lessons at the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School by American Ballet Theater.

The author`s debut novel Coming Out in New York was published in 2012, followed by Fame, Baby & Inspiration in 2014 and Live as Heroes in 2019.

Derek Meyer has written for several lifestyle magazines and returned with his new book Stonewall 1969 on the day of the birth of his son in June 2020.

Dedication

I want to dedicate this book to my daughter Isabela and my son Alessandro, who are the light of my life and who have the hearts of the true believers.

My children reminded me of the importance of believing, fighting, and loving, and I look forward to all those years and adventures that are waiting for us.

Acknowledgements

I want to take this opportunity to remember all those amazing men and women who defined the gay rights movement and which I mentioned in this book. They are the true heroes and include Thomas Cannon, Jeremy Bentham, Heinrich Hoessli, Oscar Wilde, John Addington Symonds, Edward Carpenter, Havelock Ellis, Federico Garcia Lorca, Magnus Hirschfeld, Adolf Brand, Emma Gordon, Radclyffe Hall, Henry Gerber, Harry Hay, Reed Erickson, Alfred Kinsey, President Bill Clinton, Evelyn Hooker, Frank Kameny, Dale Jennings, Alan Turing, Eric Julber, Carl Wittman, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, John Lindsay, Dick Leitsch, Craig Rodwell, Randy Wicker, Helen Buford, Sylvia Rivera, Michael Faber, Marsha P. Johnson, Fred Sergeant, Diego Vinales, Ed Koch, Harvey Milk, Robert Hillsborough, Nancy Wechsler, Freda Smith, Allan Spear, Angela Morley, Leonard Matlovich, Ciela Rorex, Dave McCord, Dave Zamora, Tom Gallagher, Robin Taylor, David Reynolds, Marilyn Barnett, Mary C. Morgan, Randy Shilts, Charles H. Cochrane, Larry Kramer, Geoffrey Bowers, Matt Shepard, Romaine Patterson, Dennis and Judy Shepard, Governor Howard Dean, James Bryant Jr, Allen R. Schindler, Jr, Barry Winchell, Hillary Clinton, John Shalikashvili, William Cohen, Colin Powell, President Barack Obama, Randy Phillips, Gary C. Ross, Dan Swezy, Jeremy Johnson, Ginger Wallace, Marissa Gaeta, Masen Davis, Wade Davis II, Leelah Alcorn, Mara Keisling, Ashton Carter, Sheri Swokovski, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, George Harris, Jack Evans, Krista and Jami Contreras, Carter Brown, Luke Peterson, Ted Olsen, David Bois, Cortney Worrall, Bill de Blassio, Gavin Garth, Christine Hallquist, Tammy Baldwin, Kate Brown, Jared Polis, Christopher Pappas, Angie Craig, Sharice Davids, Debra Haaland, Katie Hill, Malcolm Kenyatte, Lisa Bukner, Gerri Cannon, Annise Parker, Kyrsten Sinema, Rudolf Nureyev, Chirlane McCray, Christine Jorgensen, Corey Johnson,

and Josh Fenton.

Introduction

Once Upon a Time

Once upon a time, there was a little boy who grew up on a farm in Germany a few years after Stonewall in New York City had happened. And no one could have foreseen that the events of that summer in 1969 would impact his life many years later.

And even if this boy was born after the Stonewall Riots in New York City, he questioned for a long time that fairytale endings did exist for gay people until destiny turned his life upside down.

When most children listen to the good night stories, which their parents read to them before bedtime, then they want to believe that those heroes are out there and that the good always wins. But gay people had to accept at an incredibly young age that they were never part of those fairytales in the first place.

And indeed, no prince would find and kiss the male version of the Sleeping Beauty, which would wake up an entire kingdom from a curse, which had lasted for 100 years.

It seemed instead that all those amazing men and other members of the LGBTQ community were living in a cursed world and one day found themselves being trapped in a place where all their happy endings were stolen – our world.

But no matter how dark this world was, there were boys like me out there, who wanted to believe and who felt that this is how it should have happened for all of us:

Once upon a time, there was a prince who was riding his horse as fast as he could. The prince was brave, handsome, kind, and determined to fight for what he believed in life and represented all the good things which a hero should stand for. Some people called him Charming, but that was never a name that sat well with the prince since he wanted to be known for much more than that. ¹

The prince's horse was crossing the long bridge of the river fast, which divided the two kingdoms, which belonged to him and the princess he loved. The sun was disappearing behind the mountain. And his coat was flying in the wind when the prince and his loyal horse entered the enchanted forest.

The prince's horse kept running faster and faster before they finally reached the center of the forest. The snow was falling on the ground when the handsome prince halted his horse and jumped off it. Charming ran with fast steps to the coffin under the tree, which was surrounded by her friends the seven dwarfs, who had accompanied her in the last weeks of her life. And there she was lying in her beautiful white dress inside of the glass coffin. Her hair was black and long and the way we remember it from the fairy tale. Snow White seemed to be sleeping so peacefully.

The dwarfs were grieving, and one of them looked up with his head and told the prince that he was too late. The prince was in disbelief and screamed, No. He ran to the glass coffin and looked at the beautiful princess full of sadness. Open it, he demanded with his loud voice after a while. I am sorry, stated the wisest dwarf, She`s already gone! The snow kept falling on the ground when the prince repeated his request once again. Then, at least let me say goodbye! The dwarfs understood his pain and opened the coffin after a short while.

The handsome prince nodded and paused. After a while, he leaned over and kissed her lips. The next moment it seemed that a massive wave went through the entire forest. Snow White took a deep breath and opened her beautiful eyes. The princess seemed surprised until she noticed Charming next to her. Snow White sat up and touched his cheek with her hand. You! You found me, she realized happily. They were both smiling at each other, full of love and happiness. Did you ever doubt I would?

Truthfully? The glass coffin probably gave it away, she suggested with a twinkle in her eyes. The prince went with his hand through her long hair. You don't have to worry, Snow. I will always find you, assured Charming her. Do you promise, questioned Snow White before the prince kissed her once again. And that was the ending of the fairy tale which we had listened to in our childhood. ²

But while this is the way most of us believe the fairy tale of Snow White and Prince Charming ended, this book is just getting started. And I can promise you a book not just about the gay rights movement during the last 50 years or so but also a book about prince charmings and evil queens and the big question, which most of us have on our mind. Are heroes out there, and does the good always win?

The early days

Many people believe in 2020 that being a gay man in New York City or most other parts of the United States doesn`t come with significant challenges anymore. And when members of the LGBTQ community celebrate Pride in New York every June, then they celebrate the kind of life, which they are entitled to and which they mainly own to the gay rights movement in the last century.

The laws, which used to prohibit homosexual activity have been struck down, and there was even a point in recent times when the entire LGBTQ community could serve in the military until the controversial president Donald Trump banned transgender people in the military once again. 

American people will always remember popular President Barack Obama as an essential supporter of the LGBTQ community; and consider the ability of same-sex couples to get legally married and adopt children in all 50 States as one of the most relevant milestones of the community`s fight for equality.

There have been indeed so many achievements since the turn of the century that we sometimes forget that it has been an awfully long and bumpy road and intense fight for the gay rights movement.

Not such a long time ago before Josh Fenton and I were born, things were different. In those times being born gay didn`t seem to be just a burden but also life-threatening until the gay rights movement eventually began to improve the quality of life of gay men.

It is a challenge to define when the actual gay rights movement started, which has never stopped and focuses in modern times, especially on employment, housing, and transgender rights. ³

But how did it all start?

The Enlightenment Era

It seems to be impossible for New Yorkers not to spot either drag queens or hand-holding same-sex couples at one point in their life. Rainbow flags are hanging outside of bars, restaurants, and shops in the New Yorker neighborhoods Chelsea, Hells Kitchen, the West Village, the Greenwich Village and West Harlem and children in schools are used to some of their classmates having either two dads or two mums.

But back in Europe, same sexual behavior and cross-dressing like drag queens do was not just considered as socially unacceptable but also as serious crimes under sodomy and sumptuary laws in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. ⁴

Many people with strong religious beliefs have considered for hundreds of years being gay, lesbian, and bisexual as immoral. And religious leaders have tried to convince their followers to make use of dangerous conversion therapies to turn gay into straight people, which has been vehemently opposed by the LGBTQ community. ⁵

There had, however, been exceptions when cross-dressing was quite common in many of William Shakespeare`s plays since, in the Elizabethan age, female roles were played by younger men in the 17th century. ⁶

Many consider Thomas Cannon as the first author, who defended homosexuality in his work Ancient and Modern Pederasty Investigated and Exemplify, which was published in 1749. Cannon stated enthusiastically that unnatural desire is a contradiction in terms and downright nonsense. Desire is an amatory Impulse of the inmost human parts: Are they not, however, constructed, and consequently impelling nature? ⁷

The social reformer Jeremy Bentham was well known as a critical supporter of the gay rights movement.  Jeremy Bentham raised his voice in support of gay men in a time when the legal penalty for homosexual activities was death by hanging. Jeremy Bentham took a significant risk in his political career when he was pushing for a homosexual law reform in England in 1785. Bentham argued that homosexuality was a victimless crime and should, therefore, not deserve social approbation or criminal charges. Jeremy Bentham also argued already back then that the popular negative attitudes against homosexuality resulted from irrational and perpetuated religious teachings. Unfortunately, his persuasive essay wasn`t published until 1978. ⁸

A few years later, France would become the first nation that decriminalized homosexuality in the aftermath of the French revolution when groups of militants sodomite-citizens petitioned the National Constituent Assembly. The Assemblee Nationale was the governing body of the French revolution for freedom and recognition and was busy drafting policies and laws of the new French republic in 1792. The Assemblee eventually decided in favor of gay people when it established that homosexuality was no longer a crime.

The so-called sodomy laws were swept away in several catholic countries with the liberalizing effect of the Napoleon Code after the French Revolution in which the fun-loving queen Marie Antoinette like so many other members of the former French nobility had lost their heads. On the contrary, the sodomy laws remained in most Protestant countries until the late 20th century. The church was less severe in those countries, and people failed to have a closer and critical look at those laws since there was no general reaction against statuses that were initially religious.

After the introduction of the Napoleonic Code in 1808, the Duchy of Warsaw followed France`s example and decriminalized homosexuality. Brazil followed in 1830, and the first gay-friendly literature titled Eros: The Male Love of the Greeks was published by Heinrich Hoessli in Switzerland in 1811, which defended same-sex love. ⁹ ¹⁰

The emergence of the LGBT movement

Attitudes to homosexuality changed with the arrival of the Victorian era and became more hostile again when the Criminal Law Amendment included the Labouchere Amendment in 1885. The Amendment made any act of gross indecency with another man a crime, which eventually led to playwright Oscar Wilde`s conviction. Oscar Wilde was punished with the most severe sentence under the Act in 1895 and imprisoned from May 25th, 1895 to May 18th, 1897. The hard labor and poor living conditions inside of the Wandsworth Prison had an impact on Oscar Wilde`s health. He suffered from illness and hunger and raptured his right eardrum after collapsing during chapel, which would lead to his death later at the age of 46. ¹¹ ¹²

Those social reformers, who had defended homosexuality since the 1870s were far too afraid of the consequences and kept their identities a secret. Some of them had been just like Oscar Wilde members of the secret British society Order of the Chaeronea. The Organization was campaigning for the decriminalization of homosexuality and consisted of several authors and poets from Oxford. ¹³

John Addington Symonds was one of those poets and early advocates for male love. The author became the very first one to introduce the word homosexuality to the English language in his work A Problem in Greek Ethics. Symonds couldn`t discuss homosexuality openly in his literature work due to the taboos of the Victorian era, but his published work reached a broader audience later. Symonds writings contained substantial implications and first direct references to male-male sexual love in English literature. John Addington Symonds would be remembered as an influential member of the English literature. Symonds sexuality was an open secret in cultural circles by the end of his life. ¹⁴

The English socialist poet Edward Carpenter went further. Carpenter defended homosexuality by describing it as a natural human characteristic, which should not be regarded as a sin or criminal offense. The English sexologist Havelock Ellis agreed with Carpenter and highlighted in his book Sexual Inversion in 1897 that same-sex relationships could not be characterized as a pathology or a crime. The author`s book was first printed in German and then translated into English. The public considered the book as so controversial that one bookseller found himself being charged in court for holding copies of it.

Those books were published in a time when a broader socio-political movement known as free love hit the Victorian sexual morality and criticized that traditional institutions of family and marriage seem to enslave women at that time. Defenders of the Victorian era, however, were aware that the gay movement was mainly driven by poets in those years. ¹⁵

Traditionalists looked full of anger and hate at the work of those brave men who tried to make a difference and write about topics, which many people did not know much about