Stonewall Was a Riot: Honouring Its Radical, Gender-Diverse Legacy
This weekend marks the anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, a pivotal moment in LGBTQ+ history that ignited a global movement for queer liberation. In the early hours of June 28, 1969, a police raid on the Stonewall Inn in New York City was met with fierce resistance from queer patrons, many of them trans women, drag queens, street kids, and gender-nonconforming people who had long been harassed, beaten, and silenced.
Stonewall wasn't the beginning of queer resistance, and it wasn’t the first riot led by transgender or gender-diverse people. But it was a turning point: a spark that united fragmented communities, radicalised a generation, and demanded visibility in ways that could no longer be ignored.
For non-binary, gender-diverse, and trans folks, especially those living at the intersection of racial and economic injustice, Stonewall was our riot. It wasn’t clean or corporatised. It was led by those who had nothing left to lose but everything to fight for.
At Enby Meaning™, we honour Stonewall not as a historic artefact, but as a living call to action. Today, as queer and trans people continue to face erasure, violence, and systemic neglect, it’s more important than ever to remember that Pride began as a protest. Our rights were not granted; they were demanded by those who refused to be invisible.
This post is a reflection, a reckoning, and a celebration. It’s about reclaiming Stonewall’s radical roots through a non-binary and gender-diverse lens, and reminding ourselves that we’re part of a legacy of resistance, resilience, and joy.
What Were the Stonewall Riots?
In the early hours of June 28, 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn, a mafia-run gay bar in New York City’s Greenwich Village. But unlike countless other raids, this time the patrons fought back.
As officers attempted to arrest drag queens, trans women, butch lesbians, and queer youth—violently—people refused to be silent. Crowds gathered, coins and bricks were thrown, and for six nights, the streets around Christopher Street pulsed with protest, rage, and defiance.
The Stonewall riots didn’t come out of nowhere. They followed years of state-sanctioned violence: being queer could get you fired, institutionalised, or jailed. In many U.S. states, wearing "the wrong" clothes was a criminal offence. People were surveilled, outed in newspapers, and denied the right to gather in public.
What made Stonewall different wasn’t just the intensity of the resistance, but also the timing and momentum. The world was already changing: Black civil rights, feminist uprisings, anti-war protests, and liberation movements had lit a fire across the globe. The queer community was ready. Stonewall became a flashpoint for organising, and in the months that followed, new groups emerged to fight for the liberation of gay, lesbian, trans, and gender-diverse individuals.
Contrary to many mainstream retellings, Stonewall wasn’t a “gay men’s rebellion.” It was led by some of the most marginalised: street queens, homeless youth, and gender non-conforming people who refused to comply with respectability politics.
Their courage didn’t just open the closet door; it shattered it.
The Intersectional Roots of Stonewall: Race, Gender, Class, and Resistance
To understand the true legacy of Stonewall, we have to move beyond the whitewashed versions taught in (some) textbooks and parades sponsored by banks. Stonewall wasn’t a polished movement led by cis gay elites in suits; it was a messy, radical uprising led by those on the margins.
Among the first to resist were Black and Brown trans women, street queens, butch lesbians, sex workers, and homeless queer youth. Marsha P. Johnson, a Black drag queen and trans rights activist, and Sylvia Rivera, a Latina street queen, are two of the most recognised figures, but they were not alone. The riots were powered by the fury and resilience of those pushed to the edge by systemic racism, police brutality, class oppression, and gender violence.
Many Stonewall participants weren’t welcomed in white gay spaces. They were excluded, policed, and silenced by the very organisations that claimed to represent “homophile respectability.” At Stonewall, they took up space anyway and fought like hell to keep it.
That intersectional legacy is crucial. Stonewall wasn’t just about the right to love; it was about survival. It was about poor trans girls getting kicked out of shelters. It was about Black and Brown queers brutalised by police. It was about immigrants, sex workers, and those criminalised for living authentically. If we forget that, we forget what Pride means.
Liberation is only truly realised when it encompasses all of us, especially those most marginalised from mainstream narratives.
Why Stonewall Matters for Non-Binary Folks
Stonewall’s legacy isn’t just about same-sex marriage or rainbow crosswalks; it’s about liberation for non-binary, gender-diverse, and trans people, especially those living at the intersections of race, class, and disability, that struggle continues.
In 1969, there wasn’t a language like “non-binary” in mainstream discourse, but people existed beyond the binary then, just as we do now. The queens, femmes, butches, and street kids who led the riots were resisting not only homophobia but the violent policing of gender itself. They danced, fought, and lived outside cisnormativity, refusing to fit into a world that demanded conformity.
That’s the legacy we inherit.
For non-binary people today, Stonewall is a reminder that we have always been part of this fight, even when history books erase us. It’s a reminder that our visibility, our joy, our defiance, and our right to exist are acts of resistance. Whether we’re using they/them pronouns, creating queer art, or building mutual aid networks this is our continuation of the riot.
And in a world where gender nonconformity is still criminalised, pathologised, or mocked, Stonewall reminds us we’re not new, and we’re certainly not alone.
We must carry this legacy forward to continue empowering non-binary people not to assimilate, but to thrive. We must honour those who paved the way by creating spaces that reflect the full, messy, beautiful spectrum of who we are.
Who’s Been Erased from Stonewall, and Why That Matters
As Stonewall became mythologised, much of its radical, gender-diverse spirit was scrubbed clean. Media coverage, official monuments, and corporate pride campaigns often centre white cisgender gay men, leaving out the very people who threw the first bricks.
Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera were once booed off the Pride stage for speaking about trans rights. Trans femmes of colour, sex workers, and non-binary people have long been pushed aside in favour of more “respectable” narratives. Even in 2025, references to trans and queer people were quietly removed from the U.S. National Park Service’s official Stonewall monument webpage sparking outrage and protests from across the LGBTQ+ community.
Erasure isn’t passive. It’s political.
When we flatten the story of Stonewall, we reinforce the very systems it resisted. We erase the contributions of people who didn’t fit into cisnormative, capitalist, or white-dominated frameworks. We betray the legacy of an uprising that was never meant to be palatable but intended to be revolutionary.
To honour Stonewall is to name those who were there. It’s to remember that the riot began because people were tired of being harassed for how they dressed, loved, or survived. It’s to recognise that non-binary and trans people were not just present; they were central.
How We Can Honour Stonewall
Commemorating Stonewall isn’t about rainbow capitalism or cute slogans; it’s about action, reflection, and remembering that Pride began as a form of resistance. Here's how you can honour the uprising in ways that centre the people it was really for:
1. Support Non-Binary and Trans-Led Initiatives by Donating to Organisations:
The Okra Project
For the Gworls
Tīwhanawhana (Aotearoa-based)
Gender Minorities Aotearoa
House of Tulip
or, us, here at Enby Meaning™
Even a small donation helps support those continuing the legacy of queer survival.
2. Read, Watch, and Learn: Educate yourself and others. Share stories that include the voices of Black, Brown, Indigenous, disabled, and gender-diverse people. Suggested content:
Happy Birthday, Marsha! (film)
Transgender History by Susan Stryker
Podcasts like Gender Reveal or Marsha’s Plate
3. Show Up—But Be Intentional: Attend Pride events that are trans-inclusive, decolonial, and anti-corporate, where possible. Or support grassroots gatherings in your community that honour Pride’s activist roots.
4. Challenge Norms in Your Own Life
Normalise sharing and respecting pronouns.
Uplift non-binary voices at work, at home, and in your networks.
Push back on binary thinking in everyday conversations.
5. Celebrate Queer Joy: Host your queer gathering, wear that outfit you've been scared to wear, or write a love letter to your younger self. Joy is resistance. So is rest.
Enby Meaning™ Spotlight: Carrying the Torch Forward
At Enby Meaning™, we’re choosing to mark Stonewall not just with words, but with intention. By building inclusive content, amplifying diverse voices, and holding space for the messy, complicated beauty of our community, we keep the riot alive.
Everything we create is rooted in the legacy of Stonewall—not as a branding moment, but as a responsibility. We’re not here to sell you an aesthetic. We’re here to build a home for the gender-diverse, non-binary, and queer community that honours where we’ve been and where we’re going.
Our platform exists because so many of us grew up never seeing ourselves reflected in media, in systems, in stories. Stonewall reminds us that change comes when we stop waiting for permission to exist.
Whether we’re sharing non-binary travel safety guides, celebrating queer joy through fashion, unpacking gender identity in our blogs, or creating space for intersectional lifestyle content—you’ll find Stonewall’s spirit in everything we do: radical, unapologetic, collective.
We’re not just here to look back. We’re building what comes next.
This Pride season—and every season—we invite you to be part of that vision. Share your stories. Speak your truth. Connect with others who are walking this path as well. Whether you're newly out or long out loud, there's space for you here.
Stonewall Was a Riot—And Still Is
The Stonewall uprising wasn’t the beginning, and it wasn’t the end. It was a spark—a moment of collective power when those most marginalised stood up and said no more. That legacy lives on every time a non-binary teen finds the language to name themselves, every time a trans woman fights for healthcare, every time we choose community over conformity.
Stonewall was not polite. It was not safe. It was not palatable. It was radical, defiant, intersectional—and deeply human. That’s what we choose to honour.
This weekend, as rainbow capitalism floods your feed, remember who lit the match. Remember Marsha. Remember Sylvia. Remember the butches, queens, hustlers, femmes, and street kids who built this movement with their bodies and their brilliance.
And remember this: Pride is protest. Pride is power. Pride is possibility.
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Let’s keep telling the full story—loudly, proudly, and together.
Happy Pride. Happy Resistance. And never forget: we’ve always been here.
