Condescendingly, many straights imagine that the gays of yore must have become self-loathing and passively spent their entire lives in the closet until Stonewall happened. As if we as LGBT folk didn't exist until the late 60s as anything other than the occasional person hung for sodomy or something. This has always kind of pissed me off as a gay person, if only for the reason that if you even try to bring up the idea of anyone having a gay life before the 60s people just assume it couldn't be possible. In the popular imagination, most people imagine that gay culture in New York City started in 1969 with the Stonewall Riots.
A group of lesbians at NYC venue Webster Hall
