“Why don’t you guys do something?”

She, the handcuffed stone butch, challenged the crowd, match dropping to gasoline.

Everybody went wild after that. Chaos turned to complete mayhem. For the next six days, trannies pounded heads with purses; officers were assaulted by flying coins, painful change. Mobs chased police and police chased mobs. Swarms of swishy protesters doubled back around to surround New York’s (now furious) finest. Phalanx formations of riot cops faced Rockette-style kick lines of queens. It was campy musical mixed with gory action flick.

It was the Stonewall Rebellion.

Stonewall Inn was a Mafia owned, horse-stable-turned-gay-hangout. Drinks were diluted and overpriced. There was no running water behind the bar. Stonewall’s customers were transgendered, gay, lesbian and bisexual; they were racially and ethnically diverse. Many were economically disenfranchised. Eyes behind a peephole peered at them before they were allowed to enter.

Police raids were common, routine. Regular patrons knew the drill. But on this summer night, that old familiar anguish turned inside out.

Shortly after, the Gay Liberation Front was formed. Other homosexual organizations had preceded it, but they were prone to obscure names and polite pickets. The GLF was radical and addressed many issues, including militarism, racism and sexism. They marched for Afeni Shakur. They produced in-your-face flyers like "Do You Think Homosexuals Are Revolting? You Bet Your Sweet Ass We Are!”

June 28, 1970, the one year anniversary of Stonewall, the GLF organized what we’ve come to know as the first Pride march. In New York, marchers were more than a dozen blocks deep. In San Francisco, around 30 people marched down Polk Street for the “Christopher Street Liberation Day Gay-In.”

Less than two months later, Oakland’s Huey Newton, Black Panther Minister of Defense, gave a speech in which he addressed the liberation movements of women and homosexuals.

“We should try to unite with them in a revolutionary fashion … I say ‘whatever your insecurities are’ … because sometimes our first instinct is to want to hit a homosexual in the mouth, and want a woman to be quiet … because we are afraid that we might be homosexual … because we are afraid that [the woman] might castrate us, or take the nuts that we might not have to start with.”

Neither “gay liberation” nor “Black power” would truly recognize those with a foot in both worlds - and the radical strain of each would weaken and fade - but for a moment, that moment, they touched.

Before she faced the crowd, the stone butch had been beaten over the head with a billy club because she asked them to loosen her cuffs. Once outside, she escaped custody three times before they heaved her back into the patrol wagon.

As SF Pride 2010: Forty and Fabulous draws near, on June 27, my hope is that our remembrance of its origins becomes a call to action. I don’t believe that violent revolution can bring the world to justice, or else it would have accomplished this already.

And yet, the self-esteem of those who had the sense to fight back when they were being attacked, the eruption of visibility in the face of blindness, the logical formation of alliances - these are gifts from the movements of the past, gifts that we can use and make new.

What is Pride?

1) the absence of shame

2) community (a pride of lions)

3) a barrier, created by the ego, which obscures the potential of the spirit

The rainbow flag was created by Gilbert Baker for the 1978 San Francisco Pride Parade. Now it’s a global celebration of all things queer. And yet, my family, my pride, as Forty and Fabulous approaches, it’s time to ask ourselves - has the rainbow been realized?

The GLF fell apart and new, more moderate leadership resumed control of the quest for equality. Though drag queens played a major role in the Stonewall Rebellion, transgendered people have had to fight for inclusion in Pride events.

Which definition of “pride” are we promoting?

Racist images splash across greeting cards in Castro shops. Bisexuals are still shunned and silenced, despite the hard-earned third letter in LGBT. White “family” continues to distort the identities and issues of family of color.

Would-be husbands die in ICU without the comfort of their lifelong beloved. Non-biological mothers sit in courtrooms with aching wombs, knowing that the children that they have nurtured and raised are just beyond the eyes of that judge. That judge, who may see her as the newest, most modern perversion - a woman strange enough to love someone without her DNA.

My head throbs to the beat of a billy club bruise.

“Why don’t you guys do something?”