They decide, enough is enough. We by follow take it anymore. We will not have it anymore. An explosive confrontation at an illegal bar that changed history. This was the rosa parks moment for gay people. It was their neighborhood, it was their bar. It seemed like it was a war zone. There was the Tactical Police force, police cars, sirens. And then somebody started a fire. Stonewall was the spark. The Gay Liberation front was the torch lit by that spark. We carried that torch out of the closet, into the streets. Were america. You cant separate us out. I think its not a civil rights issue, its a moral issue. A 50year battle for equal rights and respect. I could not have guessed that at this age i would be married to a man. I never could have seen that coming. Im here doing what im doing because of all of the generations before me. Stonewall has taught us, you have to fight for what you want. And once your voice is heard, theres no turning back. They call me mayor pete, and i am running for president of the United States. 50 years ago, it would have been unthinkable for an openly gay person to run for any public office. We did capture 73 of the vote. Today, more lgbtq people have been elected than at any time in our nations history. I want to make sure that we all feel represented. That is so important. Its really exciting to see the expansion of what the american story is. This is what democracy looks like im here doing what im cog because of all of those generations before me. Gay history, lgbtq history, is not a straight line. Its three steps forward and two steps back, sometimes. But in many ways its part of what makes america great. This movement is about creating an america that actually is the stuff of our dreams. Every human being really having liberty and justice. And peace and joy and love. Without threat. In media, in business, in communities, in families across the country, lgbtq americans are woven into all aspects of society. Something once unimaginable before the stonewall rebellion launched the modern Gay Rights Movement out of darkness, shame, and oppression. Id like to begin with a fact. A simple yet shocking fact. Homosexuals, lesbians. This moral decay weakens our resistance to the onslaught of the communist masters of deceit. In the 50s in america, communism became this catchall thing to scrub the government of people deemed unworthy or unamerican. And so how much more unamerican can homosexuals . There were very serious witch hunts of homosexuals that began in 1950 by the federal government. Commie pinko fag put gay people in this category where if you were gay, you were a potential betrayer of the United States. Literally he knows of thousands of gay men and women were hounded out of government service. While gays were being routed out of government, most americans didnt know of or talk about home sexuality. I grew up in an evangelical home. They loved jesus, i loved jesus. My dad was mayor. Hired a city manager. Came home one day and said, he walks a little light in his sandals. And i said to myself, what does that mean . I went to school in virginia. In my senior year, the teacher wanted to talk about a police raid on a house with queers. So the girls were saying, oh, those poor, sick people. And the boys were saying, boy, if i could just get my hands on those guys. And there i was thinking, oh my god, i think i am one of these people theyre talking about. I grew up in flat bush, brooklyn, a middleclass, jewish family. My mother seemed to think that homosexuality was a disease that men caught from the hairspray. She just had no idea of what homosexuality was. The American Psychiatric association did determine the nature of homosexuality in 1952, classifying it as a mental illness. Now that was a big deal to a lot of people. If the American PsychiatricAssociation Says we are pathological, we must be. What jimmy didnt know was ralph was sick. A sickness of the mind. You see, ralph was a homosexual. If you were a homosexual, you had to be treated for your homosexuality. The first shock is given. The message i was getting was both, i was sick and needed to be cured or healed. I confessed my sin to a pastor. Then i went to an exorcist and i said, can you exorcise the demon of homosexuality out of me . I went to exorcism rituals. I went to behavior psychiatrists, can you get rid of this thing . They put electric things on me and took pictures of me and pictures of beautiful women, and when i saw a picture of a beautiful man come up, i had to shock myself. I was terrified. In the 50s and 60s there was also this enormous amount of shame, that you were a depraved person, you were a bad person. You could be arrested and put in jail. There wasnt a single state in the union that didnt have a sodomy law. The community was underground. It was in hiding. Had to go to extraordinary measures to find each other. We found each other through bars. There was a great deal of fear. Homosexuals from all over america sought refuge and community in large cities like new york. And there the neighborhood to find was Greenwich Village. The most important decision i ever made in my life was to move to Greenwich Village, the gay world. I found pulp novels. And these novels said, there are lesbian bars in the village where these women met each other, you should find these evil bars, and then you too could meet a sexy woman. It was the village, it was magic to the whole village. There were all these places and all these people. It was that kind of excitement. And we were all or mostly gay. But there remained a web of laws and harsh enforcement that kept gays and lesbians oppressed and criminalized. It was very tightly policed. It was almost like we were some kind of like animals that had to be given some kind of recreation and a little bit of area, but shouldnt spread out too much. You couldnt really hold hands, right . If i had makeup on my face, the cops would arrest you for female impersonation. If we saw lily law, which was the police, we would hide. There was no law that said you couldnt serve homosexuals alcohol. But you couldnt serve people who were disorderly. Gay people were, by assumption, disorderly. You had to have a cabaret license in order to dance in a bar. There were red lights in the bar. If the police came in, the lights were flash, you were supposed to separate and stop dancing. One law stated that at least three items of genderappropriate clothing must be worn. So before i went to the bar i got in front of the mirror and i did a check. Blouse. Buttoning the correct way, check. Womens underwear, check. Pants ah, wrong, mens pants. Because womens pants zip up the side or the back in the 1960s. Not up the front. The police could use these laws to shut down bars. But one early gay rights group, the matasheen society, tried to challenge this oppression in 1966 by staging a sipin. Four activists walked up to the bar, ordered a drink. The bartender had begun to serve it. And they said, and were homosexuals. So then he extended his hand out over the glass and said, well, i cant serve you because youre homosexuals. They called the press. They got photographers, including the new york times, to come. Their goal was to show that these laws were unjust. Matasheen did get the word out, but serving gays remained effectively illegal. That wasnt a deal breaker for those whose businesses were outside the law. The mafia had a lock on this. They were the only ones who were going to take the risk of serving illegal patrons. It all got to go on because the mob paid off the cops. In 1967, a new mobowned bar opened on christopher street in Greenwich Village in the shell of a burntout restaurant called the Stonewall Inn. It was like another world. I mean, it seemed like paradise. People were dancing, young, having fun. It was kind of dark, very little lighting, you know. So much different from others. Stonewall would not shame you when you danced slow with someone. And dancing slow, were able to hold on to each other and know that were people. Even with payoffs, the stonewall wasnt immune to raids by the nypd. Occasionally theyd raid a bar, make arrests, to show they were cleaning up the village. Gay people wound up being the pawns. You found gay people were under increasing pressure during that time. But you squeeze gay people enough, theyre going to fight back. Coming up the police are rating the stonewall, the police are raiding the stonewall, get to Sheridan Square when irst cam, as a person of trans experience, i didnt have a brother who saw me for who i was. Calling her and telling her, i kind of want to date a girl, she lost it. Its about to be five years since ive spoken to my mom. Hello . Hi, its mom. Its like we aint talked on the phone in a long time. You know, when you first called me. Yeah . I should have told you how much i loved you then. Like, i really dont ever want you to feel like im not there for you, dude. woman you count in our life, in our family. Stop touching over there, youre gonna make a mark on your face. Oh my god, ma. She just wanted to call and tell me shes proud to have me as her daughter. Mno kidding. Rd. But moving your internet and tv . Thats easy. Easy . easy . Easy. Because now xfinity lets you transfer your Service Online in just about a minute with a few simple steps. Really . Really. That was easy. Yup. Plus, with twohour appointment windows, its all on your schedule. Awesome. Now all you have to do is move. That thing. [ sigh ] introducing an easier way to move with xfinity. Its just another way were working to make your life simple, easy, awesome. Go to xfinity. Com moving to get started. I sat on the stoop about two houses down from stonewall bar. It was hot and humid. But no breeze. You expected something to happen that particular night because the air was really, really heavy. At the Stonewall Inn on friday night, june 28th, 1969, the lights were low. Music was loud. And the dance floor packed. The diversity of the people who were at stonewall ranking from street kids, people dressed in scare drag, the guys in khakis and buttondown shirts. You had the drag queens come on the dance floor who were controlling the jukebox. Across the street from the stonewall, unnoticed in christopher park, undercover nypd cops seymour pine and Charles Smythe of the Public Morals Division were staking out the bar. Pine and Charles Smythe were charged with enforcing censorship, pornography, and closing legal bars. The detectives leading the team closed in on the stonewall. Smythe and pine, along with police agents, knocked on the bar saying, were here, open the door, were the police. Lights were turned on, the jukebox was unplugged. There was anger. There was also terror because people were afraid they would be arrested. As the police began rounding up patrons inside the bar, a crowd gathered outside. Walking up christopher street, and i see this police car in front of the stonewall. I think, well, whats going on . This guy came running down the street screaming that the police are raiding the stonewall, the police are raiding the stonewall, get to cher tan square i was walking from my loft, and right there, 50, 60, maybe 100 people. The mood was sort of like defiant and jubilant and gay. It was very exciting. I saw a lot of police cars. I saw a lot of people screaming. People were laughing and camping it up and patrons were being let out of the bar and people would bow, a crowd would applaud and cheer. Theyre calling to trends and theirs and say, come over to the 6th precinct later and bail me out. Havent got the money. Well, find it adding to the cheers and applause, the crowd of gays, lesbians, and transgender people began taunting the police. People started throwing pennies. One of the names for cop, copper. Pennies are made of copper. Cops knew they were being insulted. At that point things started to get a little touchier. Not quite so festive. The cops got a little rougher. Then the crowd started throwing pebbles. Hey, kids, you know, knock it off tension increased between the police and the crowd, and soon hit the breaking point. The door opens and this very masculine, butch woman whos dressed like a man is being taken out. She was fighting with several police officers. They were trying to push her in a car. And she wasnt getting in. So they got rougher and rougher with her. They got a night stick and started pushing on her. She was screaming out, what is the matter, why dont you help, why dont you do something, why are you just standing there . Once that happened with that woman, things got darker. I could feel it. Thats when the whole change came about, and there was a massive eruption of anger. People started grabbing anything they could lay their hands on. There were bottles and beer cans and somebody threw things through the window, people were yelling and screaming. It became a mob scene in the street. The police soon realized they were outnumbered by the rioters and retreated into the stonewall. That moment of retreat caused a whole avalanche of gay anger that was like nothing that had ever been witnessed before. This one policeman was bent over hitting somebody in the doorway. So i launch forward and kicked him in the rear with all my force and fled into the crowd. And somebody picked up a garbage can, put that through the window. And then somebody started a fire. Some group of people had managed to pull up a parking meter and were using it as a battering ram on the front door. People were living in the moment and just responding to this adrenaline surge. We were not thinking rationally, normally. It was a mob mentality. The officers trapped in the bar were armed, and inspector pine would later say he feared there would be a bloodbath. Seymour pine went to each police officer, put his hand on their shoulder, and said, dont shoot until you hear me give the order to shoot. He was able to keep a massacre from happening. After an hour, two busloads of the nypds Tactical Police force arrived, enabling police to safely escape the stonewall. The Tactical Patrol force was organized to handle antiwar protests. Very serious business. Helmets, shields. But the rioters werent easily dispersed. The rioters knew the village, they knew the back streets, came up behind the riot squad. Throwing objects at them, taunting them. And this shocked everyone. Because they just didnt imagine gay people having such courage. I found this astounding. Id never seen anything like it. By dawn, 13 rioters had been arrested. The streets around the stonewall were calm, but the rebellion was just getting started. Coming up i was thinking, wow, what an incredible night we had. And whats going to happen saturday night . Only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Has four levels of defenseremium gasoagainst gunk, wear, corrosion and friction. That helps keep your Engine Running like new. Its fuel for thought. Uh, well, this will be the kitchen. And wed like to put a fire pit out there, and a dock with a boat, maybe. Why havent you started building . Well, tylers off to college. And moms getting older. And eventually we would like to retire. Yeah, its a lot. But Td Ameritrade can help you build a plan for today and tomorrow. Great. Can you help us pour the foundation too . I think you want a house near the lake, not in it. Come with a goal. Leave with a plan. Td ameritrade. I had no idea why my mouth was constantly dry. It gave me bad breath. It was so embarrassing. Now i take new biotene dry mouth lozenges whenever im on the go, which is all the time. New biotene dry mouth lozenges. Freshen breath anytime, anywhere. New biotene dry mouth lozenges. I swibecause they let metual, customize my insurance. And as a fitness junkie, i customize everything, like my bike, and my calves. Liberty mutual customizes your Car Insurance, so you only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. The morning after the rebellion at the stonewall, june 29th, 1969, gays in the village began organizing. And we started, how can we keep this going . We knew something had happened. It was our time. All day saturday, news of the riots spread across the city. I heard about the stonewall uprisings and riots and i thought, wow. People fought back. I thought it was kind of amazing. But not all gays thought the riots were a positive step. There was a sign in the window of the stonewall that had apparently been written by the Mattachine Society saying, essentially, dont make trouble, go home. The Mattachine Society was totally freaked out. Because we were not being the nice, gay people that they wanted to present as not disruptive. We said, no were not nice, were pissed off that evening, rage was in the air around the stonewall. More and more and more money people showed up. And i got the sense something was going to happen tonight. And it was going to be bigger than last night. The second night was much more militant. By midnight, there were more than 1,000 people in the streets around Sheridan Square. It seemed like it was a war zone. There was the Tactical Police force, police cars, sirens. People were setting fire to trash cans. Everywhere there were bands of gays running around, cries of christopher street belongs to the gays. I heard a lot of chanting that night, you know. Gay power. Im gay and im proud. During the Early Morning hours, the Tactical Police force began a sweep to clear christopher street of rioters. The riot police formed phalanxes and marched pond christopher street. And in response to this, queens formed a rockettes kick line across christopher street. And they were singing, and they were kicking. We are the village girls we wear our hair in curls we wear our dungarees rolled up above our knees all the while the tpf, with their helmets and their shields and their clubs and their guns, kept getting closer and closer. And they kept kicking until that moment when the police were just a few feet from them. And then they took off. I think it was the bravest thing i have ever seen in before. The riots hit the new york papers, and for the next few nights, resistance continued in the streets around the stonewall. This was the rosa parks moment for gay people. This was the,