The Stonewall Riots, Stonewall Uprising, Stonewall Rebellion, or Stonewall, were a series of protests by members of the LGBTQ community in response to a police raid at the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood in New York City. Patrons of the Stonewall, other Village lesbian and gay bars, trans activists, and unhoused LGBT individuals fought back when police became violent. Within weeks, Village residents organized into activist groups demanding an end to discrimination against homosexuality.
The Stonewall Riots are considered the origin of the gay liberation movement, however, there was already the emergence of a gay liberation movement in New York at the time of the riots. Within two years of the Stonewall riots, there were gay rights groups in every major American city, as well as in Canada, Australia, and Western Europe.