The New York Daily News wrote that “while ridiculing the effeminate men and drag queens among the patrons, ll hell broke loose when the police entered the Stonewall. However, according to media and eyewitness accounts, what motivated the police raid on the night of June 28, 1969, was not that the bar patrons slept with people of the same sex, but that they were gender-nonconforming men, or drag queens-men who dress up as women for entertainment purposes. At the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in New York City’s Greenwich Village, police harassment was nothing new.
Gay community life initially centered around gay bars, which became hubs of many social and activist movements in the late 1960s and 1970s. Not only does PrideFest serve as a time for members and friends of the GLBT community to connect, have fun, demonstrate gay pride, and show support for gay rights it also commemorates a pivotal moment in gay rights history, the Stonewall Riots. The event’s evolution in Denver reflects social and political changes affecting the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) community through the decades.