Before Stonewall

This restored edition of Greta Schiller and Robert Rosenberg's iconic 1984 documentary "Before Stonewall" may feel a little dated in style and delivery – Rita Maer Brown's narration has a clinical feel to it, given how the text continually refers to gays and lesbians as "homosexuals," with no mention made anywhere of trans, bi, or queer people – but the film retains a power to shock, enrage, and educate.

The events of June 28, 1969 are well documented as a subject in and of itself, most notably in docs like "Stonewall Uprising," but what led up to them? How had America's LGBTQ culture taken root, become politicized, and gained enough courage and will to stand up and fight back against police brutality, demonization in the press, government persecution, and slanders from every side?

"Before Stonewall" brings the larger picture into clearer focus, tracing the emergence of gay identity – and a growing communal identity – from the 1920s on, with World War II and its turmoil shaking up everything about American culture... including gays and lesbians who, in the war's aftermath, came to port cities like New York and San Francisco.

Many LGBTQ patriots served their country with unflinching courage and honor, and this point is touched on by a couple of interviewees. One recalls a sexual experience between himself and two other male soldiers that took place mere days before the other two were killed in action. (If only great films and TV series like "Band of Brothers" had the scope and courage to delve into such stories!) Another interviewee recalls that "the battalion that I was in was was probably about 97% lesbian." When the general in charge of her battalion (no other than future president Dwight D. Eisenhower) called her in and issued orders to "get rid of" any lesbians in the WAAC, the interviewee – identified as Johnnie Phelps – let him know in no uncertain terms that to carry out that order would be to hollow out a necessary fighting force, starting with herself. Eisenhower quickly rescinded the order, and that was the end of it.

Until 1948, that is, when a new wave of anti-LGBTQ hysteria began to sweep the country, propelled in part by McCarthyism. "People were looking for enemies of all sorts, anywhere," we're told. The Lavender Purge – when the federal government essentially went on a homophobic witch hunt, terrified that Russians might blackmail non-heterosexuals – was one result. That, in turn, led to government scientist Frank Kameny being targeted; Kameny, an early hero of the LGBTQ equality movement, could have gone meekly, as a system designed to inspire terror and compliance intended, but he didn't. He pushed back.

Other heroes began to emerge. Even though being publicly identified as gay (or even going to a gay bar) could mean losing everything, even one's life, pioneers like Harry Hay braved social and legal systems intended to enforce sexual conformity and punish deviations. Hay and others started the Mattachine Society; not long after, lesbian organization The Daughters of Bilitis came into existence.

Post-war trends such as the nuclear family migrating to the suburbs helped drive the American economy, and it's hard to gauge just how much it was the case that money played into the social and legal codes that targeted and attacked sexual minorities. Certainly, there was an impact; and that impact took a toll on the people who had to play along even though it meant posing as someone else and living inauthentic lives.

But science, as well as literature and principled resistance, played a part in helping overcome social and legal persecution. The Kinsey Report helped to demystify human sexuality; psychologist Evelyn Hooker availed herself of the memberships of nascent gay organizations to prepare a study contrasting gay men and their straight counterparts, and found that there were no real differences in how well adjusted, happy, and productive gay men could be, if simply left alone to pursue their lives and careers.

Crucially, we hear, "It's not as if the '50s were a time of wimpy total desperation; it depends on who you were, where you were, how lucky you were" as to how well any given LGBTQ person might fare, and central to that was a sense of community and the realization that individuals were not alone in all the world. Gay bars flourished, and when a San Francisco mayor decided to attack a bar called The Black Cat, he created a precedent: The bar helped form a Tavern Association that then ran an openly gay candidate for the office of city supervisor – the same office that Harvey Milk won years later, when he became the first openly gay person to be elected to public office.

Still, "The bar scene was miserable," as one interviewee recounts; police raids were common, as was police harassment and entrapment. As the civil rights movement was gaining momentum and the Baby Boom generation was becoming empowered to stand up for what they wanted, conditions became right for LGBTQs, too, to stand up, speak out, and resist... and that's what happened when a police raid in New York triggered the Stonewall riots and ignited the LGBTQ equality movement.

So what happened, and why are we now, in 2019, facing hatred that's as vicious and vitriolic as what we faced decades ago? Why are we struggling to hold our ground after having won so many major victories for ourselves as individuals, professionals, and patriots – not to mention the gains we have made for our families? After we managed to "crack that shield of invisibility" that caused us to be complicit in our own oppression, and gaining mainstream acceptance, how do we still find ourselves and our rights being used by opportunists, false prophets, and anyone else who needs a convenient political football?

That is a topic for a different documentary, one that will tell the story of the still-unfolding current chapter in LGBTQ history. Meantime, we have a growing corpus of work to look to for history, context, and an understanding of who we are in this country, and why. Much of that starts here, with this film.

"Before Stonewall" is coming back to theaters. See it if you can. It's as necessary now as it was in 1984.