Our History
Where you come from can be just as important as where you’re going, in the same way that knowing the history of your own community can help you understand yourself better, help you connect with others, and lastly - help you see what still needs to be done.
Trans History In The UK
DMC is named after our own UK trans history, but more specifically, we’re named after Roberta Elizabeth Marshall Cowell and Laurence Michael Dillon.
Roberta Cowell was the first known British trans woman to have had an Orchidectomy, one of many stages of bottom surgery for trans women, and Laurence Michael Dillon was the trans man who helped perform it.
In the 1950s a surgery like this was illegal. Under the ‘Mayhem’ laws, ‘men who would otherwise qualify to serve in the military’ were not allowed to be ‘disfigured.’
Cowell had previously enlisted in the Army in 1940, and had also been a prisoner of war, so was eligible to re-enlist if she was ever needed to do so, thus preventing her from having any surgery that would be thought of as ‘disfigurement,’ such as gender reassignment surgery.
Laurence Michael Dillon, on the other hand, was the first known British trans man to have had Phalloplasty, one of few options there are for lower surgery for people transitioning from female to male.
Sir Harold Gillies was the man who performed Dillon’s Phalloplasty, and Cowell’s Vaginoplasty, which was carried out some time after her Orchidectomy.
Cowell had found Dillon through his book, which Dillon had written after he had trained to become a doctor. The book was called: Self: A Study in Ethics and Endocrinology.
Without Cowell and Dillon, as well as Sir Harold Gillies, it could have taken much longer for trans people in the UK to get access to the lower surgeries that we have today, as well as the ability to legally transition.
LGBT UK History
The Homosexual Law Reform Society led campaigns against the poor treatment of Gay and Bisexual men after the discrimination of sexual acts between men in 1967.
The 1970s came around, and with it came much-needed activism and the formation of many other organisations to do so, including: the Campaign for Homosexual Equality, Gay News (set up in 1972), Switchboard (1974), and Gay’s the Word bookshop (1979).
An organization known as the Gay Liberation Front had started in the US, but members eventually came over to the UK to form a British chapter of the Gay Liberation Front.
They met in the UK for the first time in October 1970, at the LSE Library. The first UK Gay Pride Rally then took place on July 1st 1972 in London.
The Terrence Higgins Trust was set up after the AIDS crisis began in the 1980s, with the first person dying in 1981 of an AIDs-related illness, as well as many other Gay men, including Terry Higgins in 1982. The trust was started in his name.
There was a massive lack of support for anyone suffering from AIDS, so many lesbians and bisexual women stepped up to support gay and bisexual men when not even the friends and relatives of those dying from AIDS would.
Act Up was one of the key groups who focused on challenging the lack of political and social support for those living with AIDS. The overall lack of support led to an uprising in support and community activism during this time.
The 1980s was a bad time for the LGBT community, during which time Section 28 was allowed to be passed as law. This meant that teachers weren’t allowed to talk about LGBT relationships in schools. As a result of this many teachers were forced to leave their jobs or even go back into the closet.
The damage that this did to a generation of LGBT people is a painful reminder of all the work that still has to be done.
Eventually, 20 years after the initial Stonewall Uprising, Stonewall was created to fight against discrimination in the UK.
Trans History In The US
Stonewall is something many people have heard about, and it is routed in Queer history.
But not so many people know that trans women were at the forefront of Stonewall, and two of the most prominent trans women who led many Stonewall riots were Marsha P. Johnson, and Sylvia Rivera.
They became leaders of the Gay Liberation Movement after their efforts during the Stonewall Uprisings, helping to found the group STAR (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries), as well as starting the first LGBTQ+ (Lesbian Gay Transgender Bisexual Queer) youth shelter in North America.
Marsha and Sylvia became the first Trans women of colour to lead an organization in the US.
Throughout their lives, and even after the Stonewall Uprisings, Marsha and Sylvia continued to act as prominent voices for the trans community.
Marsha P. Johnson sadly died in 1992 after being found in the Hudson River, and the way she died is still unknown.
Sylvia Rivera died of cancer a decade later.
Monuments were supposed to be built for Marsha and Sylvia in New York City, but COVID-19 got in the way of this taking place.
Instead, activists created their own tribute to Marsha in Christopher Park, New York City.
Stonewall
The Stonewall Riots started on June 28th, 1969. New York police decided to raid the Stonewall Inn, a gay club in Greenwich Village, New York City.
Gay clubs were a place for LGBT people to go and take refuge in, and the Stonewall Inn became one of those places after being brought by a crime family and then being renovated for as little money as possible. It wasn’t in good condition, but it was a place where LGBT people could exist without fear, at least for a little while.
Raids on gay bars happened all the time back then, but bars owned by crime families often bribed police to get tips about when a raid would happen, so that any illegal activity could be hidden.
But when the Stonewall Inn was raided on June 28th, nobody saw it coming.
The bar wasn’t tipped off, customers were hurt and arrested, and anyone suspected of ‘cross-dressing’ was taken into the toilets by female officers and ‘checked’ to see what sex they were assigned at birth.
They were assaulted in many different ways, both mentally and physically, that day. As well as all of the decades of mistreatment before it.
Groups of people had flocked to the outside of the bar at this point to see what was going on, although many people already knew what raids looked like, but had decided to stay instead of dispersing like the police would have asked them to.
Eventually, marginalised people get sick of being told where we can and cannot be, what we’re allowed to do with our bodies, and everyone outside of the Stonewall Inn had decided enough was enough on that particular day, so, they stayed where they were. They became angrier and angrier as people were forced and manhandled out of the bar and into police custody.
A woman was eventually hurt by an officer, who hit her over the head as he forced her into a police van, at which point she asked onlookers to act, and act they did.
A riot broke out, with hundreds of people involved, throwing everything they could at the police.
People started barricading themselves inside the Stonewall Inn – the police and their prisoners – whilst those outside tried to set it on fire after repeatedly breaching the barriers.
Even after the fire was put out and people were taken to safety, the riots and the protesting carried on for five more days.
The Stonewall Uprising led to the creation of various gay rights organizations, as well as bringing together LGBT people and paving the way for LGBT political activism.
Organizations including the Gay Liberation Front, Human Rights Campaign, GLAAD (formerly Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation), and PFLAG (formerly Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) were all created following the Stonewall Uprising.
One of the main organizations to come out of the uprising, as previously mentioned, was the Gay Liberation Front. They started off in the US, as well as helping to create the first Pride, which back then was known as the Christopher Street Day Parade, named after the street the Stonewall Inn was on.
The first Pride took place on June 28, 1970 in New York City, one year after the Stonewall riots.
