Stonewall and Class Struggle

The mid-20th century marked a turning point in the US, where queer* people organizing underground took their first steps into open political formations. Gay and lesbian organizations solidified and began printing the first national publications, with goals revolving around helping queer people find community, educating all people on queer issues, and promoting reforms to challenge legal bans against homosexuality, as well as social and economic discrimination. After several decades of work, on June 28th, 1969, a police raid commenced at the Stonewall Inn, sparking a week-long uprising. Figures such as Marsha P. Johnson, Stormé DeLarverie, and Sylvia Rivera became legendary organizers among queer circles, and the first “Gay Pride Parade” a year later laid the foundation for today’s LGBTQ+ movement—a movement of constantly evolving strategy and unending struggle against the violent discrimination queer people face. This legacy, however, is in no way divorced from that of the international working-class movement; in fact, the connection has only become more apparent. As the international communist movement reassesses many of its past mistakes and struggles to reclaim a revolutionary line, we’ve also reached a point where the question of how the working class relates to this long history of queer social struggle has become not only unavoidable but a necessity. Likewise, the terms of how this movement could achieve victory must be laid bare.

Setting the Stage

At the time when the earliest gay rights formations were emerging, the CPUSA wasn’t allowing “homosexuals” in its ranks, at least not formally. This proscription, combined with the crisis plaguing the CPUSA—dissolution, reconstitution, and the ideological breakdown stemming from it—and the international communist movement grappling with the fallout of positions taken in the name of fighting fascism, created a perfect storm. Queer people were setting out to establish new gay rights organizations, some even leaving the CPUSA to do so. Meanwhile, the International Communist Movement was mired in ideological and political conflicts, and for any number of reasons seemed unprepared to address the question fully and thus was unable to capture the momentum early on. This displays on the one hand, an ideological weakness in the CPUSA at the time as it struggled to find its footing after its dissolution and various missteps over the decades. On the other hand, the organizations that emerged were notably uninterested in class struggle, neither as part of their programs nor as central to the interests of queer people—despite some organizations having workers and even former communists in their central leadership. This state of affairs would persist into the late 1960s. 

Meanwhile, queer people faced a continuous campaign of harassment and violence by the bourgeois state and the general public. Many remained closeted, while others sought refuge in gay and lesbian clubs prone to police raids—allegedly due to their legal circumstances, such as serving liquor without a license. These circumstances fostered a relationship of extortion, with the mafia as one of the few players interested in hosting these clubs (to their financial benefit). Everyone, at least those in the working class, faced risks of isolation, gender violence, financial ruin, and homelessness, whether they were deeply closeted or openly flamboyant drag queens.

The raid on the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village was part of an increase in police raids on gay bars and clubs in the area. However, the reaction to this raid would define its historical significance, providing an anchor for the development of the LGBTQ+ movement.

“At around 1:20am, NYPD officers from the force’s now-defunct Public Morals Squad, detective Charles Smith and deputy inspector Seymour Pine, swung through the doors of the Stonewall Inn.

Seven more officers followed. It was no surprise, Segal said, as such raids were all too familiar.

Disgruntled bar-goers were harassed and hurried out of the inn, greeted to a warm summer night. Police pulled some patrons aside, asking for identification and even subjecting those in drag to genital inspections. Staff, meanwhile, were arrested.” (1)

Regardless of disputes about the exact sequence of events that followed, the combination of increased crackdowns and the police’s actions that night resulted in a six-day uprising, with queer people taking to the streets to directly resist the violence they had experienced at the hands of hostile class forces. A new wave of organizers and activists emerged, reflecting other political movements of the time, with slogans like “gay power” and organizations such as STAR (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries) and the GLF (Gay Liberation Front) demonstrating diverse ideological trends in the uprising’s aftermath.

The Contemporary Struggle

The uprisings led to the first Gay Pride Parade a year later, commemorating a watershed moment for years to come. Through the rise and fall of various bourgeois theories and ideological trends over the decades, the Stonewall Uprising and the political period of the 1970s marked the path for reformist movements and the broader LGBTQ+ movement. However, just as the uprising’s legacy endures, so too do attacks and violence against queer people, with reforms proving fleeting and danger persisting. While liberal reformists in the LGBTQ+ movement resign themselves to the “evidence” of progress, anyone familiar with the movement’s history can see its unresolved contradictions. Despite decades of political work, we’re no closer to ending gender violence, let alone agreeing on what a liberated society would look like.

It is undeniable that the LGBTQ+ movement, despite the efforts of individuals and groups, developed outside a class outlook. Its default political character is irrefutably bourgeois, and we must acknowledge this. However, this doesn’t negate the fact the majority of those with an LGBTQ+ identity are of the working class,**  just as the patrons of the Stonewall Inn who decided to fight back.*** The class character of the Stonewall Uprising is undeniable: it was workers and their allies pitted against the bourgeois state that oppresses them. The LGBTQ+ movement has obscured the class forces underlying its creation, not due to its workers’ fault, but because of bourgeois intellectuals and political leaders seeking to pacify them. Thus, we must advocate for a politically independent path for queer workers, with class struggle at the forefront.

The emergence of pride parades and festivals reflects the ideological trends of their era, and their ties to larger political and economic interests grew slowly but surely over the decades. Today, for better or worse, they are unrecognizable from their origins. Replacing class struggle are parties and parades sponsored by bourgeois reformist organizations and corporations seeking to launder their reputations in rainbow colors. As communists, our job is to go where the workers are. We must send agitators to engage with workers at these events, challenging their reactionary foundations. Crucially, we need action to unite queer workers and the entire working class around shared interests. Moving forward, we should commit June 28th as an annual day of struggle, organizing actions and demonstrations that reject capitalism-imperialism as compatible with queer workers’ interests. As our analysis of gender and sexuality develops, and as we engage with these workers, we will refine our practice, slogans, and demands—knowing exactly what queer workers need and how socialism-communism provides the foundation to achieve what the Stonewall patrons, owing to a lack of organization, could not: turn an uprising into a revolution.

*The term queer in the way it is being deployed through the article, is not a specific identity, but instead an umbrella term to the relevant social group that has coalesced due to different relationships with gender and sexuality in bourgeois society, helping to bypass the myriad of changes that have occurred regarding language, understanding, and overall development of queer people socially in the US. When this shorthand is not being used, it’s to describe either specific identities or to navigate how data is collected and recorded.

**To retain the focus on the subject of the article while also providing a brief clarification on the class makeup across queer people in the U.S., a note is being added here. The U.S. census has only in recent years begun collecting data on LGBTQ+ people in the U.S. and doesn’t yet have anything that concretely breaks down relevant information by industry so the best we can do at the moment is look at what data we do have available and draw the best possible conclusions. 1. According to a 2024 Gallup Poll, the total percentage of Americans who fall under some category of LGBTQ+ is 9.3% and rising. Furthermore, 9% of college graduates and 10% of non college graduates are LGBTQ+ meaning higher education isn’t a factor (more on this later.) (2) 2. Now, according to a study from the University of Notre Dame, despite the fact that gay men and lesbian women are reported to have significantly higher rates for higher education than ”straight” men and women, 52% and 44% respectively vs. 36% for all adults, there are multiple other factors that cause this disparity to become more even such as a. bisexuals being the largest group and being below the national average in education and b. After the 1980’s, the disparity between straight and lesbian women higher academic attainment narrowed and c. Despite all groups listed experiencing higher levels of academic stress especially from being socially targeted, gay men being an outlier seems to be in spite of this, even with race accounted for. (3) 3. In 2023, LGBTQ+ adults were employed at 53% compared to a national employment rate of 60.3%. (4) 4. Although there’s been a recorded increase in businesses owned by LGBTQ+ people, with a recorded 1.4 million, (5) this totals to approximately 4% of all U.S. businesses and approximately 4% of LGBTQ+ people, which would at nearly any given point be the highest as historically relevant for our purposes. 5. LGBTQ+ people have a poverty rate of 22% compared to 16% of U.S. adults. (6) All of this is to say that even with some social advancements between the period the stonewall uprisings occurred in and today, it is statistically impossible to come to any other conclusion than that the majority of queer people come from the working class as they make up a minority of the petit-bourgeois and despite outliers in education they do not occupy a disproportionate representation in the professional classes and academia to offset the measurable economic precarity with higher rates of poverty and unemployment relative to the national average. This brief analysis however, is insufficient for understanding queer people across classes and writing will need to be dedicated to this topic.

***While there is no concrete data to illustrate them, accounts of the event have been consistent in explaining that the patrons of the Stonewall Inn were normally from the working class and the more disparaged strata of society such as sex workers and those who couldn’t maintain stable jobs. This is in contrast to Julius’ nearby which had a liquor license and was frequented by the more professional class. The “Sip In at Julius’”, (a protest that resulted in a legal case that eased restrictions on public displays of affection of the same sex,) and the Stonewall Uprisings, and their respective actions are a product of the class makeup of the establishments and its patronage. (2) Although, there should be more elaboration to contrast the two events, it is beyond the scope of this article.

[1] Milton, Josh. “Stonewall Riots: No One Can Erase the Truth That Trans Women Kickstarted the LGBTQ+ Rights Movement.” PinkNews | Latest Lesbian, Gay, Bi and Trans News | LGBTQ+ News, 8 May 2025, www.thepinknews.com/2025/05/08/stonewall-national-monument-trans/.

[2] Jones, Jeffrey M. “LGBTQ+ Identification in U.S. Rises to 9.3%.” Gallup.com, Gallup, 20 Feb. 2025, news.gallup.com/poll/656708/lgbtq-identification-rises.aspx.

[3] Mittleman, Joel. “1Intersecting the Academic Gender Gap:The Education OfLesbian, Gay and BisexualAmerica.” SocArXiv Papers, 19 Oct. 2021, osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/26a8d_v1. Accessed 13 June 2025.

[4] Tierney, Abigail. “Employment Status LGBTQ+ U.S. 2023 | Statista.” Statista, Statista, 2023, www.statista.com/statistics/1383508/employment-status-lgbtq-us/. Accessed 10 July 2025.

[5] Buttle, Rhett. “LGBTQI+ Businesses Contribute Nearly $2 Trillion to Economy.” Forbes, 12 June 2024, www.forbes.com/sites/rhettbuttle/2024/06/12/lgbtqi-businesses-contribute-nearly-2-trillion-to-economy/.

[6] HRC Foundation. “The Wage Gap among LGBTQ+ Workers in the United States.” Human Rights Campaign, 2021, www.hrc.org/resources/the-wage-gap-among-lgbtq-workers-in-the-united-states.

[7] 1966 “Sip-In” at Julius’ Bar.” National Park Service, National Park Service, 13 May 2025, www.nps.gov/ston/learn/historyculture/julius.htm.