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College Students Attempt To Ban "Stonewall" Screening—But Not For The Reason You Expect

"We are accepting an inaccurate portrayal of the Stonewall Riots and creating a space of oppression for queer and trans students on campus.”

A group of students at Colorado College attempted to demand the film studies department cancel its planned screening of the ill-reviewed Stonewall, hyperbolically stating that showing the film would be a literal act of violence against them.

Perhaps most surprising is the group behind the petition: Members of the campus’ LGBTQIA+ group.

Related: Roland Emmerich Says People Were Too Quick To Judge “Stonewall” Movie–But Were We?

Colorado College’s independent student newspaper. The Catalyst, first reported on the story.

A group of concerned students called for a boycott of the screening and created a group, Radicals Against Institutional Damage (R.A.I.D.). The group sent a letter signed by nine to key administration on campus expressing their views.

“This film is discursively violent,” write the activists. “In a world where cisgender, white gay people have finally achieved 'marriage equality' and many see the struggle as being over, it is reinforcing a hierarchy of oppression to invent someone who never existed and place them in a historically-based film with the express purpose of silencing more marginalized groups.”

“Critical discussion is simply a way of engaging in respectability politics,” first-year Amelia Eskani told the paper. “I think Colorado College should cancel the screening because the safety and well-being of queer and trans students surpasses the importance of a critical discussion. By showing the movie on campus, we are accepting an inaccurate portrayal of the Stonewall Riots and creating a space of oppression for queer and trans students on campus.”

“If CC is really as dedicated to diversity and inclusion,” said junior Grace Montesano, “they would never have agreed to screen a film that queer students have repeatedly stated is a threat to our identity and our safety. It is fallacious to equate the rights of students to view a movie with the rights of students to exist free of violence.”

Now, no argument, Stonewall did little if anything to better the greater public's understanding of the 1969 Stonewall Riots, but calling it a threat to our safety is quite the unjustifiable claim, especially when our community is still barraged with real-life threats like the unrelenting murders of our trans women.

"There is no danger in letting evil ideas be openly discussed and debated so long as we are confident in our own ability to use reason to defeat them," The Daily Beast's Robby Soave deftly pointed out in defense of the film being shown.

After briefly caving and canceling the planned screening, administrators decided to move ahead with the planed screening. Finally, Stonewall caught a break.

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