Stonewall Inn is now a National Historical Landmark.

On 27 June 1969, at this gay men's bar, a police raid took place; in the 1960s, police raids on gay bars were frequent, and homosexuality was widely considered to be a sign of moral decrepitude (or in the days of McCarthyism, a sign of Communist corruption). The patrons fought back, determined to stand their ground. The riots continued for days.

The gay rights movement of the 1950s and the 1960s were generally led by homophiles, who wanted to demonstrate that gays were capable of functioning morally and normally in society, but between the civil rights struggles earlier in the 1960s and a changing of the social tides, the movement became much more activist as a result of the Stonewall Riots. By the late 1970s, gay rights movement would start to have mainstream legitimacy, and despite the setback of the AIDS epidemic and Reagan-era conservatism, would make huge gains from the 1990s on. The LGBT movement made even more dramatic gains in some other parts of the world, notably Western Europe.

Some in the transgender community like to point out that the most fierce protesters at Stonewall (who also were the most despised by the society) were drag queens and transwomen, whom the rest of the society treated as hyper-feminine gay men. They also like to point out that Stonewall Riots were one of many occasions where a transgender-led struggle for justice was appropriated by the gays, and the transgenders were left behind.