On June 28, 1969, The Stonewall’s patrons rose up. It is the most important symbol in the U.S. But on certain nights-Pride Sunday, the spectacular Drag March that kicks off Pride Weekend at the end of June, and any time the queer activist community needs to speak out against the brutality and oppression we’ve experienced-The Stonewall is something else.
On any given night, The Stonewall is a happy-go-lucky, touristy gay bar. One of many hundreds of protests in the same spot, this demonstration was happening on Sheridan Square because it is the home of The Stonewall Inn. Gays Against Guns’ event was both a remembrance of those lost to the LGBTQ+ community and a protest in demand of the kind of gun laws that could make all communities safer. In this case, the portraits were of the 49 people killed five years ago in a mass shooting by a homophobic murderer at the Orlando gay bar, Pulse Nightclub. They were dressed in their signature “Human Being” costumes: a ghostlike ensemble of white pants and shirt, white shoes, white hat and veil, and in each of their hands, a large photograph of a gun violence victim.
On June 12, 2021, members of the activist group Gays Against Guns took over Christopher Street on Sheridan Square in New York City’s West Village.
