NEW YORK - Lady Gaga electrified thousands of revelers who gathered in New York on Friday to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the LGBTQ rights movement, exhorting the crowd to honor the past by using its "power" to extend and defend a half-century of progress.
Her warm-up speech and a subsequent rally, part of a series of World Pride events in New York this week, commemorated the so-called Stonewall uprising of June 28, 1969.
Early that morning, patrons of a Greenwich Village gay bar called the Stonewall Inn rose up in defiance of police harassment, triggering days of rioting. Their resistance gave birth to the national and global movement for equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and other queer people.
Lady Gaga, a Grammy Award-winner whose signature song "Born This Way" has become an LGBTQ anthem, fired up the crowd, which began gathering in the park and public square outside the Stonewall hours earlier.
Appearing with a rainbow-colored jacket and thigh-high boots, she declared that Stonewall was the moment when LGBTQ people said "enough is enough."
"I may not, to some people, be considered a part of this community, even though I like girls sometimes. I would never degrade the fight you have endured," she told the cheering crowd. "You have the power. You are so, so powerful, and I hope you feel that power today."
Later the rally alternated between political speeches and block-party gaiety. Musical performances and rhythmic dancing rattled windows in the low-slung neighborhood. Drag queens sang '80s hits like "I'm So Excited" in between speeches by activists from countries such as Uganda and Chechnya.
US politicians including presidential hopefuls Kirsten Gillibrand, one of New York state's 2 US senators, and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio also took the stage ahead of what organizers are calling the largest gay pride parade in history set for Sunday, when some 150,000 marchers and 4 million spectators are expected.
In between featured speakers, impromptu rallies formed and dispersed outside the bar, with people waving homemade signs such as "Closets are for Clothes!" and "Gay Liberation Front," paying homage to the radical group that formed immediately after Stonewall.
"Get laid, get drunk, and have a party," said Martha Shelley, one of the Gay Liberation Front founders. "And then go home, roll up your sleeves, and fight."
While the anniversary has a celebratory air, activists see the occasion as a way to protest US President Donald Trump's record, which many consider hostile to LGBTQ people. They also want to highlight the still-precarious position of LGBTQ people in many parts of the world.
Police raided the Stonewall, a Mafia-owned gay bar, ostensibly to crack down on organized crime. But their mistreatment of the patrons, part of a pattern of abuse against LGBTQ people, touched off the uprising.
While celebrating 50 years of progress, many LGBTQ activists are sounding the alarm about Trump administration initiatives, including a ban on transgender people in the military, cuts in HIV/AIDS research and support for so-called religious freedom initiatives that eliminate LGBTQ protections.
The White House claims Trump has long advocated LGBTQ equality, noting that he has backed a global campaign to decriminalize homosexuality.
"President Trump has never considered LGBT Americans second-class citizens," White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement.
The message has been lost on many LGBTQ people, as the Trump administration opposes extending anti-discrimination protection to gay or transgender workers under federal employment law, a legal issue currently before the US Supreme Court, with a ruling due within a year.
In nearby Washington Square Park, some 500 pro-transgender activists staged a Trans Day of Action, where some held up "Black trans lives matter" signs, lamenting that 10 transgender people have been murdered in the United States in 2019 after 26 were killed in 2018 and 29 in 2017, according to the LGBTQ advocacy right Human Rights Campaign.
"Trump has really proliferated this hate towards us," said Qweenb. Amor, 30, a trans Latina. "It's something we're going to have to face every single day for the next 20 years, despite who wins the next election because these people who put Trump in power are people we have to work with every day of our lives."
source: news.abs-cbn.com
Half a century since Stonewall, a lot of people continue to be confused about the supposed “gay agenda.” Here’s a simple explanation.
Thank you for your interest in the LGBTQ moveme... wait, wait, wait… do not close that browser just yet! By reading further, we promise you that we are not here to convert you into becoming one of us. Gay people aren’t into conversion; you might have mistaken us for Jehovah’s Witnesses. Also, we are not here to sell you life insurance. While it is true that a number of us have reinvented ourselves as financial advisors, I’m afraid that that isn’t the gay agenda.
The true gay agenda is simply asking other people to empathize with our community. God knows we need all the empathy and support we can get. So, please read on to learn more about our plight.
The modern LGBTQ rights movement arguably began during the early morning of June 28, 1969 when lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer persons rioted following a police raid at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York. The subsequent protests over a number of nights were a watershed moment for the community. This was the birth of Pride.
This year, the global Pride movement is celebrating its 50th. It is already as old as Jennifer Lopez, and just as fabulous. (Have you seen her lately?) For the past five decades, people who identify as part of the rainbow spectrum have used Pride as an avenue. This is where we, as individuals and as a community, can assert and affirm ourselves, and promote our dignity as human beings. In the Philippines, Metro Manila Pride was established in 1994 to provide an avenue for the LGBTQ community—as well as our awesome allies—to celebrate who we are and stage protests about relevant issues that concern us.
Rallying cry
Protest. It is easy to forget amidst all that glitter, sequins, and rainbows that Pride is actually a protest. “But what the hell are you protesting about? LGBTQ people are very much accepted in Philippine society!” I hear you say. Okay, first unclutch your pearls and then unclench your buttcheeks. Think about it: Is the LGBTQ community really accepted in Philippine society?
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in December 1948, enumerates the fundamental human rights that everyone needs to protect. Enforced in 1976, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, an iteration on the UDHR added the following as universal human rights: the right to work in just and favorable conditions; the right to social protection; to an adequate standard of living; and to the highest attainable standards of physical and mental well-being, among others.
Unfortunately, LGBTQ people in our islands do not enjoy these rights simply because, oh I don’t know, society thinks we have limp wrists and talk with a lisp? Or that lesbians like plaid? If you know the answer, please share it in the comments section below. No need to @ me.
In the Philippines, LGBTQ people have been openly discriminated against because of who we are.
A United Nations (UN) study revealed that 30 percent of Filipinos who identify as LGBTQ reported being harassed, bullied, or discriminated against by others while at work because of their sexual orientation, gender identity, expression, and sex characteristics.
I should know because I have experienced it myself. I did not get a job that I was being considered for because the company, a multinational one at that, emailed me that “while (I) am very qualified for the job, (they) are a family-oriented organization and (I) would definitely not fit the company culture.” Apparently, as a gay man, the concept of family is foreign to me nor am I currently part of one.
Pride and prejudice
Unfortunately, there is no legislation that protects our basic human right to work without being discriminated against for who we are. The SOGIE (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and Expression) Equality Bill, or simply, the Anti-Discrimination Bill (ADB), is yet to be passed in Congress. The bill aims to prevent various economic and public accommodation-related acts of discrimination against people based on their sexual orientation, gender identity, or expression.
We have detractors on all fronts. In March 2018, a small group of Christians protested at the Senate against the SOGIE bill by calling the proposed legislation an “abomination,” adding that homosexuality is allegedly a “sin” citing that their “hate” is allegedly credible because it is supposedly written in the Bible, and that the LGBT community is supposedly a “lifestyle.” The group also falsely claimed that the bill relates to same-sex marriage, which is not found anywhere within the bill. Two months after, Senator Tito Sotto, who opposes the SOGIE bill, became the new Senate President. In an interview, Sotto was asked on the bill’s passage, to which he responded, “Not in this congress.”
This is just the tip of the iceberg the LGBTQ community is trying to thaw with the little arsenal that we have, chief among them is the Pride March. That is why every June, we as a community stage events, talks, parties, shows and everything else we can find in our kikay kits to remind the world that we exist—and not merely to entertain you, to do your hair and makeup, to design your clothes.
We are your lawyers, your doctors, your scientists, your teachers, your security guards, your helpers, your flight attendants, your officemates, your friends, your family. And we deserve the same basic human rights as you. We take pride in who we are and in celebrating who we were born to be.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
