Silencing Queers at the Upstairs Lounge: The Stonewall of New Orleans

摘要

This essay remembers the 1973 fire at the UpStairs Lounge in New Orleans that took 32 lives—the worst arson hate crime and mass murder of gay men and friends in U.S. history. In doing so, it draws attention to the homophobic institutional silence that sought to render these queer lives, these martyrs, invisible. However, this account also reveals the heroic queer efforts of Rev. Troy Perry and others to use religious grounds for mourning and commemoration, forging a legacy more familiarly known as “the Stonewall of New Orleans” that has to date continued to thrive.