Quotes from Ann Bausum

People are beginning to realise," the doorman of the Stonewall Inn observed a few days after the riot, "that no matter how 'nelly' or how 'fem' a homosexual is, you can only push them so far.

Masquerading in the attire of the opposite sex was a criminal offense, except on Halloween.

Change does come.

doctors advised intensive talk therapy, even electroshock treatment. Some gay men were castrated against their will, a procedure that removed their testicles and deadened the sex drive. Others were lobotomized, a medical practice that destroyed the connections between the frontal lobes and the thalamus of the brain, deadening just about all aspects of behavior.

Few bars in New York, even gay bars, permitted same-sex dancing.

Men danced with men, often for the first time in their lives.

When Clinton took office, members of that community still faced a host of legal and cultural barriers. Sodomy laws banned same-sex acts, even in the privacy of one's bedroom, in more than half of the country's states plus the nation's capital.

We are following the blacks ... And we will follow, entering, perhaps, the same time as women.

And then there were the lesbians.