This weekend, there will be Pride celebrations all over the world.
Here in New York, the Pride March always passes the Stonewall Inn, where patrons--including transgenders and drag queens--fought back against a police raid on a hot night forty-five years ago this Sunday.
I marched last year, and on the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion--just a few days before my surgery.
Three years after the Rebellion, Toronto witnessed its first Pride event. For years after that, the police continued to raid bathouses and the city denied organizers permissin to march down Yonge Street. Every mayor beginning with Barbara Hall in 1995--and ending with, ahem, current mayor Rob Ford three years ago--has attended the march, though it wasn't officially recognized by the municipal government until 1998.
This year, Toronto is hosting World Pride.
A few days ago, the Huffington Post ran a fine article and even better selection of photos from the 1974 event. It's worth looking at for the hairstyles, cars, bikes and clothes. In other words, even if you don't care about LGBT history, it's a history lesson or time capsule, depending on how old you are.
Check out the photo near the end in which a young bespectacled lesbian is sitting on the front steps of what appears to be City Hall. Check out her lace-up, open-back clogs: Can you get any more '70's than that? (I wore a pair when I was in college!)
Here in New York, the Pride March always passes the Stonewall Inn, where patrons--including transgenders and drag queens--fought back against a police raid on a hot night forty-five years ago this Sunday.
I marched last year, and on the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion--just a few days before my surgery.
Three years after the Rebellion, Toronto witnessed its first Pride event. For years after that, the police continued to raid bathouses and the city denied organizers permissin to march down Yonge Street. Every mayor beginning with Barbara Hall in 1995--and ending with, ahem, current mayor Rob Ford three years ago--has attended the march, though it wasn't officially recognized by the municipal government until 1998.
This year, Toronto is hosting World Pride.
A few days ago, the Huffington Post ran a fine article and even better selection of photos from the 1974 event. It's worth looking at for the hairstyles, cars, bikes and clothes. In other words, even if you don't care about LGBT history, it's a history lesson or time capsule, depending on how old you are.
Check out the photo near the end in which a young bespectacled lesbian is sitting on the front steps of what appears to be City Hall. Check out her lace-up, open-back clogs: Can you get any more '70's than that? (I wore a pair when I was in college!)
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