Two statues erected in New York in memory of the the activists who participated in the Stonewall riots were painted brown and dressed in wigs on Wednesday, seemingly to honor statements made by Miss Major Griffin-Gacy, a trans community leader who was at the bar when police raided in 1969.
Speaking to Autostraddle, the anonymous activists said they were attempting to rectify what they perceived as an insult to the actual Stonewall heroes.
“Those sculptures are supposedly there to commemorate the Stonewall riots, but there isn’t a trace of the actual riots in them,” one of them said. “They’re a slap across the face to the black and Latina trans women who got whacked with batons and shoved into police vans, and still had the guts to continue to lead the fight for LGBTQ liberation. I mean, the people who modeled for the sculptures weren’t even at the riots! That’s just a straight-up insult.”
The post described the activists as “two queer and gender non-conforming women in their 20s, one white and one a Latina immigrant.”
Autostraddle noted that in its August 10 interview with Miss Major, she expressed her desire that the statues be amended to reflect the actual Stonewall participants.
“It’s bad enough that across the street from Stonewall, they have statues up to commemorate that night. That’s cute, but there’s not a black statue there!” Miss Major said. “The statues look like they’re made from flour and sugar! What is this? Why can’t one of the girls go up and throw up a little makeup on one of these bitches?”
At another point in the interview, Miss Major returned to the subject of the statues, saying, “Someone should smash those motherfuckers up and turn them into the white dust that they are and put a couple of statues of people of color and at least make one of them an overly obnoxious transgender woman, six-foot-five, three-inch heels, blond-red hair, lashes, beads, feathers, and put one of those fine white boys next to her. Now that I can handle!”
The activists told Autostraddle they hoped the statues were not repainted white.
“To the people who’ll end up repainting the sculptures: brown and black lacquer exists,” one of them said. “Think about what it means to repaint the statues white, and then stop.”
On Wednesday afternoon, blogger Kenneth Walsh noted that the statues had already been whitewashed again.
You can see the statues as they appeared before their makeover on the New York City parks website. Seated behind the male statues are statues of two women who are also white. They were not given makeovers.