Forty years on we celebrate the Stonewall Riots that took place on 28th June 1969. We have moved along way since then, but then again we still have someway to go. At the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, New York City. The gay community fought back for the first time against a government-sponsored system that persecuted sexual minorities.

In the 1950 and 1960 most gay people in the US as in the United Kingdom lived in the closet, it was only in the larger cities that there was any form of gay life. Very few establishments welcomed openly gay people. Those that did were often bars, although bar owners and managers were rarely gay. The Stonewall Inn, at the time, was owned by the Mafia. It catered to an assortment of patrons, but it was known to be popular with the most marginalised people in the gay community: drag queens, transvestites, effeminate young men, hustlers, and homeless youth.

Police raids on gay bars were routine in the 1960s, but officers quickly lost control of the situation at the Stonewall Inn, and attracted a crowd that was incited to riot. Tensions between New York City police and gay residents of Greenwich Village erupted into more protests the next evening, and again several nights later. Within weeks, Greenwich Village residents quickly organised into activist groups to concentrate efforts on establishing places for gays and lesbians to be open about their sexual orientation without fear of being arrested.

This was the start of the gay rights movement in the United States and around the world.
Two years later, on June 28, 1970, the first Gay Pride marches took place in Los Angeles and New York commemorating the anniversary of the riots. Similar marches were organised in other cities. Today, Gay Pride events are held annually throughout the world toward the end of June to mark the Stonewall riots.

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