The month of June

June is national LGBT history month in the United States. This is usually designated annually by the President of the United States, so has been the case under the Obama administration and the Clinton administration before that, it was not designated as such during the G.W. Bush administration for obvious reasons.

The reason June is LGBT history month is because it commemorates the Stone Wall Riots which sparked the gay rights movement in this country and around the world. The Stone Wall Riots came about when patrons (mostly transvestites) of the Stone Wall Inn, a small bar on Christopher Street in the West Village of New York City, got fed up of the systematic and targeted police harassment and arrests and began a spontaneous retaliation that lasted a couple of nights. The 'riot' was not necessarily very destructive but was instrumental in bringing about the gay (LGBT) rights movement unto the national discourse which lasts still to this day.   

This is also why June is the month when most Pride parades take place in many cities in the country and in many countries around the world culminating in the one celebrated in NYC in the last Sunday of the month. Of course, as with everything, history gets lost in the generations that don't live through it, which is mostly why Pride parades are no longer the political demonstrations they started as and are more the jubilant activities they are today.

An interesting side-note, it is theorized that the reason the patrons where particularly intolerant of the police harassment on the fateful evening was because it was the day in which Judy Garland was laid to rest. Many patrons had supposedly gone to the bar to mourn and memorialize her. Judy Garland, was from no doing of her own, a gay iconic figure because many sympathized with her tumultuous life of continually being used and abused by lovers and producers alike. Her best known song 'Over the Rainbow' became the de facto anthem of longing for a place of acceptance to live ones happy life....somewhere (and someday)! 

The song is sometimes credited for the formation of the 'Rainbow' flag becoming the symbol for the movement. However, the person who designs it doesn't necessarily agree instead insists that the colors are representative of the diversity and scope of the beneficiaries of the movement. 

Anyway, in celebration of June of this year for no reason in particular, I will be re-posting reviews I have written in Netflix and blogs everywhere of movies whose characters, plots and or protagonists are of the LGBT community (mostly 'gay' and not always in a good light).