San Diego Man Shares Memories Of Stonewall

Speaker 1: 00:01 San Diego Pride weekend kicks off tonight at six with a spirit of stonewall rally at the pride flag and Hillcrest. This is the 50th anniversary of the riots at New York City's stone wall. In any event that supercharged what was then a nascent gay rights movement, KPBS reporter John Carroll talked to a San Diego who was there within hours of what would turn into three days of writing. Speaker 2: 00:25 The riots at the stonewall in, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood started late on a Friday evening, June 28th, 1969 within a couple of hours, Joe Narvaez phone was ringing Speaker 3: 00:36 early, early in the morning, like I'm talking to like 4:00 AM from a friend telling us that there was a riot down in Greenwich village on Christmas Street and that we should get down there. And so we did. Speaker 2: 00:50 Once darvid got on the scene, the evidence of what had gone down a short time before was obvious. Speaker 3: 00:56 Oh, I remember seeing his fire because the police, the police cars, one of the police cars, right smack press the street with set out fire was burning. So that was already a sign of, of seriousness for us. Speaker 2: 01:09 Raids on gay bars, though they weren't called gay bars back then were common. I asked Narva why the stonewall patrons reached the end of their rope that night. Darren says it was primarily the drag queens who'd had enough Speaker 3: 01:23 that particular night. The police were extremely, uh, physically brutal to them because one of them talked back and the other one yelled and then they started hitting them too. That's when it turned into a real riot. Speaker 2: 01:35 The riots continued for the next three days when things settle down. Narvin says community organizing picked up. Speaker 3: 01:42 We found out about meetings that were being called. So sort of started formation of doing something about what's going on. Speaker 2: 01:49 Life for gay men back then was difficult to say the least. Speaker 3: 01:53 We were criminals. We were evil. We were defined as crimes. We can be arrested and anything, any given point, Speaker 2: 01:58 things were even worse for drag Queens. Narvin says that's why they took the lead on that fateful night. Speaker 3: 02:04 It took the direct things to do it because why not? They had nothing to lose. They weren't gonna get any better treatment or stream it. They were over getting the worst treatment they could get. So why not? Why not stand up for yourself? And they did. Speaker 2: 02:18 In 1975 Joe Narva had picked up and moved west to San Francisco where within a few years he would find himself in the middle of another watershed moment for the gay movement while studying for his doctorate. Narvin worked as an intern for Harvey milk. Speaker 3: 02:34 And so we set up a committee of which I was one of the eight or 10 people who are on the committee too, to form a program that would service the myth that the gay and lesbian and Trans community with mental health services Speaker 2: 02:50 Narvin primary memory of milk stems from a meeting where he and a colleague suggested opening a group home for runaway LGBT youth milks, sharp political instincts swung into action. He shot down the idea, Speaker 3: 03:03 so shut us down in a minute. They'll say, we were recruiting young people to be homosexuals. He was right. And that's where he, that's where, how I became his big way brighter than a lot of us at that time. Speaker 2: 03:14 All these years later. It's still tough for Narva to talk about the tragedy that unfolded on November 27th, 1978 the day Harvey milk in San Francisco, mayor George Moscone were gunned down in city hall. Speaker 3: 03:28 Market street was mud all the way down to city hall with candles burning. And Joan Baez was there with her sending. Speaker 2: 03:36 Now, 77 years old, Joe Narvin is still working. He's a clinician at San Diego's naval medical center. As much progress as the Movement for equal rights has made Narva it is concerned specifically for transgender members of the military. Speaker 3: 03:51 What just happened to the transgender sailors and Marines and soldiers should not have happened and could not have happened, I believe five years ago Speaker 2: 04:03 on the eve of San Diego's pride parade [inaudible] advice for younger members of the LGBTQ community. Speaker 3: 04:10 I don't want to say be scared. I would say be cautious Speaker 2: 04:12 advice for today from someone who was there back then. John Carroll KPBS news. Speaker 4: 04:22 Uh.