Pride Month: Gay Rights Pioneer and AIDS Activist Yvonne Ritter Shares Personal Experience in Stonewall Rebellion – Floridanewstimes.com

New York (WABC)-Gay rights pioneer and AIDS activist turns 70 this week.

When Yvonne Ritter was 18, she celebrated her birthday at Stonewall on the night of the riots. A transsexual, Ritter, was arrested and thrown into a police van.

She was afraid that her parents would know who she really was.

“Yvonne has been and is a respected pioneer,” said Dr. Barbara Warren, Senior Director of LGBT Programs and Policies at Mount Sinai Health’s Diversity and Inclusion Office.

Ritter’s friend Scott Morrow says there was a period of actual physical violence between law enforcement and gays over their right to be themselves.

On June 28, 1969, the gay rights movement was born, before long-haired liters turned 18.

She became a nurse, an AIDS activist, and a medical reformer who saved hundreds of lives, but first that night she had to talk about how to get out of police detention.

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“Let me go,” Ritter said. “If I get caught in this outfit, my dad and mom will kill me.”
It worked and she was let go. In a very different way, she continued to release others.

“I stood up for many transgender people,” Ritter said. “Some are younger than me and some are older.’Don’t worry about girls, no one can kick us,’” I said.

Morrow said Ritter was his second mother.

“I have been adopted as a child,” he said. “I lost a lot. My parents adopted me at the age of 12. I was abused a lot when I was a kid.”

Dr. Warren explains everything Ritter did-and she was helped.

“It wasn’t easy,” Warren said. “Remember that she was interracial in Latin X.”

AIDS was killing people all over the world.

“Others went with full PPE, but she entered only her and held people’s hands while they were dying,” Warren said. “She has done a lot to help people all over the country, always gracefully and always with humor.”

Next week, on June 28th, the anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion, Ritter will celebrate his 70th birthday and continue to work with young people like the young people that night.

“Be yourself,” Ritter said. “You don’t have to play games for someone who you are.”

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