By some accounts, including some attributed to her, Stormé DeLarverie was not the handcuffed cross-dressing lesbian who fought with cops and yelled, "Why don't you guys do something?," sparking the Stonewall uprising. Later, Stormé told an interviewer, "Oh, I know who that was, but I'm not going to say." Indeed, early in the morning of this day in 1969, the cops were targeting Stonewall patrons they perceived to be trans women or drag queens. By contrast, Stormé DeLarverie lived as a straight Black man, and almost nobody took her to be a woman. She told newspapers she wasn't there when the fighting started. "I walked into it. I was coming around the corner and got hit (by a cop) right dead in the eye." And, "There was no fight. I only hit him once. I guess I knocked him out. It was nothing." Stormé DeLarverie was born in New Orleans c. 1920 to a wealthy white father and his Black servant. Her birth was not registered, and she didn't have a birth certificate. She celebrated her birthday on Christmas Eve. As a kid, she was bullied by Black and white kids equally. As an adult, biracial and androgynous, she could pass for white or Black, male or female. When asked to identify, she asked to be known "as me." When asked her pronouns, she said, "Whatever makes YOU feel most comfortable." A dancer named Diana was her partner for about 25 years. Diana died a few months after Stonewall. Stormé rode jumping horse with Ringling Brothers Circus when younger, then worked as the MC and only drag king of the Jewel Box Review at the Apollo Theater. She was photographed by Diane Arbus and influenced gender-noncomforming women's fashion. Later, she worked as a bouncer for lesbian bars until age 85, and as a volunteer street patrol worker, the "guardian of lesbians in the Village." Her New York Times obituary reads, in part: "Tall, androgynous and armed – she held a state gun permit – Ms. DeLarverie roamed lower Seventh and Eighth Avenues and points between into her 80s, patrolling the sidewalks and checking in at lesbian bars. She was on the lookout for what she called 'ugliness': any form of intolerance, bullying or abuse of her 'baby girls.' ... 'She literally walked the streets of downtown Manhattan like a gay superhero. ... She was not to be messed with by any stretch of the imagination.'" In 2019, she was one of the inagugural heroes inducted on the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor in the Stonewall Inn. I've always said I'm attracted to women who can knock me down and take my money. Here's yet another such woman who would never have me. Yesterday, Korean War veteran sailor Harvey Milk's name was removed from the U.S. Navy Ship that bore his name for nine years. We're living through a time when some try to erase our heroes. I'll just say we need to remember: "It gets better!" Today's ride was very hard, much harder than my recent rides of similar miles and climb, maybe because it was relatively hot up in the hills. Living at the beach and riding mostly west of I-405, I guess I'm not used to the heat. I drank 50 ounces of water with Gu tabs and another 25 ounces without, and ate as much as I could, but I still ran out of gas at about 30 miles, so the rest of the ride was really unpleasant. But I'm glad I did it! I've ridden out to Lake Hollywood Park before, but this was the first time I've ridden the path around the lake, so I could get pictures of the lake and the dam. To get there, Mulholland is not bad from Sepulveda to Cahuenga, if the traffic isn't heavy. Then it's a hard climb up to the lake, and another hard climb at Lake Hollywood Park, where I had to walk up the hill. I refilled my water bottles at the park, thank goodness. Then down Beachwood's horribly broken concrete surface to Fountain. The last fifteen miles down Fountain Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard to the shorline were cooler, but still torture, even with a couple of stops to rest. I just had no energy left. I thought hard about jumping on one of the Big Blue Buses that I was leapfrogging most of the way. Still, I'm glad to visit some of these L.A. landmarks, since I may not be in L.A. as much as I try to get back on the road full time. (I posted this Saturday ride on Sunday, because I was too tired to do Stormé's story justice Saturday.) Credits: https://w.wiki/Eba8 https://urlzr.mp/avb (Chris Starfire) https://urlzr.mp/bvb (NY Times)