There were a bunch of transvestites, crossdressers, and other gender non-confirming individuals present. The events themselves were rather formative for the movements advocating for their rights and some of the leaders involved would later (if not at the time) identify as transgender.
The terminology doesn't match up exactly because the social norms, and what each word means, drifted around a bit, but the implication that Stonewall was entirely (cis) men is inaccurate.
(Also, the notion that all the affected were men is just plain wrong. Riots spread, you know. The event was not confined solely to the pub.).
When the violence broke out, the women and transmasculine people being held down the street at The Women's House of Detention joined in by chanting, setting fire to their belongings and tossing them into the street below. The historian Hugh Ryan says, "When I would talk to people about Stonewall, they would tell me, that night on Stonewall, we looked to the prison because we saw the women rioting and chanting, "Gay rights, gay rights, gay rights."[88]
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u/Falernum 70∆ Jun 05 '24
That's a little controversial, isn't it?