Nobody except Americans give a flying fuck about American "queer history". Why do you think anyone in the rest of the world would care about Stonewall? Shut up.
This is an interesting ask to get as a Canadian. Let's unpack this.
Making Queer History has spent a lot of time sharing global queer history, so this message feels out of the blue. It takes only a couple of clicks to find how many countries we have been able to find stories from. That being said, there is no denying Stonewalls historical significance. The Pride Parade itself is rooted in the Stonewall riots.
So if a country has a Pride Parade, it has the Stonewall riots to thank for that tradition.
But if what you learned from the stories of Stonewall was "America is the most important country", then you missed the point. Stonewall is remembered because it was a galvanizing moment for the queer community that people weren't able to bury afterwards. We are lucky enough that we live in the wake of that bravery, and telling someone to "shut up" about it is directly disrespectful to that legacy.
There were rebellions before, and after Stonewall, important ones! They deserve to be discussed, but the cost of that discussion cannot be disregarding the importance of Stonewall.
In the telling of the riots, many people will complain about how many conflicting stories there are of that night, which makes sense because it makes things difficult to pin down. What some fail to realize is how LUCKY we are that we have multiple widely spread versions of events. So many queer stories have been disappeared. So I am deeply grateful for the stories that were able to be preserved, even when it is hard.
We can both do the work of uncovering the stories that have been erased, and protecting the stories that we have access to. In fact, the false choice of only doing one or the other is what leads to American history being held as the most important.
I don't think you came here for nuance, but I have some to give regardless. I believe that you sent this because you are feeling the lack that all queer people are faced with, but I promise you this lack cannot be solved by cutting away at what little we already have. We need more stories, not less.
dailybridgerton
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yousharknotpass
