August 29, 2026

Let me ask you something. If I said “Stonewall,” what would you picture? If you’re like most Americans, you probably picture a bar. Maybe a crowd. Maybe a pride flag. You might know it happened in 1969 in New York City. You might know it was a turning point for LGBTQ+ rights. But here’s what most people don’t know and what we’re getting into on the new Changing Trends and Times LGBTQ+ America series launching August 29th. So let’s start with a few things that might genuinely surprise you. 1. The people who started the Stonewall rebellion were Black and brown trans women. The dominant image of the Stonewall uprising, if there even is a dominant image, tends to be white. But the people who were most visibly fighting back on the night of June 28, 1969, were trans women and gender-nonconforming people of color. Marsha P. Johnson, a Black trans woman from Elizabeth, New Jersey, is one of the most important figures of that night. She arrived in New York City with $15 and became one of the architects of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement. You probably weren’t taught that in school. Neither was I. 2. The federal government actively fired people for being gay — for decades. Most people know about McCarthy and the Red Scare. Fewer people know about the Lavender Scare, the parallel campaign in the 1950s that purged thousands of gay and lesbian Americans from federal jobs. The logic? That being gay made you a “security risk.” This wasn’t fringe policy. It was official U.S. government doctrine. 3. Bayard Rustin organized the March on Washington — and was erased for being gay. Bayard Rustin was one of the most gifted organizers in American civil rights history. He planned the logistics of the 1963 March on Washington, one of the defining moments of the twentieth century. And then he was quietly pushed out of the spotlight because civil rights leadership feared that his identity as a gay Black man would be used against the movement. His contribution was real. His erasure was deliberate. 4. The AIDS crisis killed over 700,000 Americans — and the President didn’t speak publicly about it for years. The first AIDS cases were reported in 1981. President Reagan didn’t say the word publicly until 1987. More than 20,000 Americans had already died. The community had to build its own systems of care, hospices, support networks, mutual aid, because the government decided those dying weren’t worth a public response. 5. The legal victories of the 2010s are not permanently protected. Marriage equality. Workplace protections. These feel settled to a lot of people. They are not. Supreme Court justices have explicitly called for reconsidering those rulings. More than 500 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced across state legislatures since 2020. The fight is not over. It moved, it didn’t end. This is exactly why we’re launching Changing Trends an Times LGBTQ+ America on AMIBW Media. Because you can’t protect what you don’t know. You can’t honor what you’ve been taught to forget. And you can’t build a future without being honest about the past. Episode 1: The Historical Arc drops Saturday, August 29, 2026 at 2:00 PM EST. Watch it. Share it. Bring someone with you. Now, we want to hear from you: What piece of LGBTQ+ history surprised you most? What were you never taught? Tell us in the comments below. Please click the play button in the middle of the box Saturday, August 29, 2026 at 2pm EST: