What Does Queer Liberation Look Like 50 Years After Stonewall?

Stonewall Inn’s bartender who goes by the single name of Tree, far left, is interviewed while a couple, right, requesting anonymity, kiss outside the iconic Greenwich Village bar, Friday, June 26, 2015, in New York. “I was here dancing with my friends the day of the rebellion when the cops raided the place,” said Tree about 1969 event credited for igniting the gay rights movement. The Supreme Court declared Friday that same-sex couples have a right to marry anywhere in the U.S.
Stonewall Inn's bartender who goes by the single name of Tree, far left, is interviewed while a couple, right, requesting anonymity, kiss outside the iconic Greenwich Village bar, Friday, June 26, 2015, in New York. "I was here dancing with my friends the day of the rebellion when the cops raided the place," said Tree about 1969 event credited for igniting the gay rights movement. The Supreme Court declared Friday that same-sex couples have a right to marry anywhere in the U.S. Bebeto Matthews / AP Photo
Stonewall Inn’s bartender who goes by the single name of Tree, far left, is interviewed while a couple, right, requesting anonymity, kiss outside the iconic Greenwich Village bar, Friday, June 26, 2015, in New York. “I was here dancing with my friends the day of the rebellion when the cops raided the place,” said Tree about 1969 event credited for igniting the gay rights movement. The Supreme Court declared Friday that same-sex couples have a right to marry anywhere in the U.S.
Stonewall Inn's bartender who goes by the single name of Tree, far left, is interviewed while a couple, right, requesting anonymity, kiss outside the iconic Greenwich Village bar, Friday, June 26, 2015, in New York. "I was here dancing with my friends the day of the rebellion when the cops raided the place," said Tree about 1969 event credited for igniting the gay rights movement. The Supreme Court declared Friday that same-sex couples have a right to marry anywhere in the U.S. Bebeto Matthews / AP Photo

What Does Queer Liberation Look Like 50 Years After Stonewall?

WBEZ brings you fact-based news and information. Sign up for our newsletters to stay up to date on the stories that matter.

Fifty years ago today, the New York Police Department raided a gay bar in Greenwich Village called the Stonewall Inn, and what followed would change queer activism in America for generations afterward. The Stonewall riots were part of a generational shift in queer activism that saw respectability-based ideology like that of the Homophile movement give way to more radical ideologies that explicitly argued for societal change and acceptance. These new movements linked advocacy around queer issues in the U.S. to issues of racial and economic inequality and an end to the war in Vietnam. We talk with Andy Thayer, co-founder of the Gay Liberation Network, one of the largest LGBTQ direct-action groups in Chicago, about what has changed in American queer politics since the Stonewall Riots and what parallels exist between the political and social climates of the 1970s and today.