Karşılıklı rıza ile yapılsa dahi iki yetişkin arasındaki eşcinsel ilişki Illinois'ın dışındaki (Illinois'te 1961 yılında yasallaştı) tüm ABD eyaletlerinde yasadışı idi: "Karşılıklı rıza ile bir eşcinselin diğeri ile kendi evinde gizlice cinsel ilişkiye girmesi bile para cezasından beş ila yirmi yıllık - hatta bazı durumlarda ömür boyu - hapis cezasına tabi olabiliyordu. 1971 yılına gelindiğinde eşcinsellerin tutuklanmasına dayanak olan 'seks psikopatı' yasaları yirmi eyalette hâlen yürürlükte idi. Pennsylvania ve Kaliforniya'da cinsel suçlular ömür boyu bir akıl hastanesine atılabilirdi. Yedi eyalette ise iğdişlenme cezası vardı." (Carter 2004, s. 15). 1950'ler ve 1960'lar boyunca psikiyatristler iğdiş, kusturma, hipnotizma, elektroşok tedavisi ve lobotomi ederek eşcinselleri tedavi etmeye çalıştılar (Katz 1976, s. 181-197; Adam 1987, s.60). Carter, David (2004). Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-34269-1.Katz, Jonathan (1976). Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A. Thomas Y. Cromwell Company. ISBN 0-690-01165-2. Adam, Barry (1987). The Rise of a Gay and Lesbian Movement. G. K. Hall & Co. ISBN 0-8057-9714-9.
Carter 2004, s. 160. Özgün İngilizcesi: "We all had a collective feeling like we'd had enough of this kind of shit. It wasn't anything tangible anybody said to anyone else, it was just kind of like everything over the years had come to a head on that one particular night in the one particular place, and it was not an organized demonstration.... Everyone in the crowd felt that we were never going to go back. It was like the last straw. It was time to reclaim something that had always been taken from us.... All kinds of people, all different reasons, but mostly it was total outrage, anger, sorrow, everything combined, and everything just kind of ran its course. It was the police who were doing most of the destruction. We were really trying to get back in and break free. And we felt that we had freedom at last, or freedom to at least show that we demanded freedom. We weren't going to be walking meekly in the night and letting them shove us around—it's like standing your ground for the first time and in a really strong way, and that's what caught the police by surprise. There was something in the air, freedom a long time overdue, and we're going to fight for it. It took different forms, but the bottom line was, we weren't going to go away. And we didn't." Carter, David (2004). Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-34269-1.
Carter 2004, s. 175. Özgün İngilizcesi: "I had been in enough riots to know the fun was over.... The cops were totally humiliated. This never, ever happened. They were angrier than I guess they had ever been, because everybody else had rioted ... but the fairies were not supposed to riot ... no group had ever forced cops to retreat before, so the anger was just enormous. I mean, they wanted to kill." Carter, David (2004). Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-34269-1.
Carter 2004, s. 178. Özgün İngilizcesi: "I just can't ever get that one sight out of my mind. The cops with the [nightsticks] and the kick line on the other side. It was the most amazing thing.... And all the sudden that kick line, which I guess was a spoof on the machismo ... I think that's when I felt rage. Because people were getting smashed with bats. And for what? A kick line." Carter, David (2004). Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-34269-1.
Carter 2004, s. 251. Özgün İngilizcesi: "By the time of Stonewall, we had fifty to sixty gay groups in the country. A year later there was [sic] at least fifteen hundred. By two years later, to the extent that a count could made, it was twenty-five hundred." Carter, David (2004). Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-34269-1.
Clendinen 1999, s. 171-172. Özgün İngilizcesi: "You go to bars because of what drag queens did for you, and these bitches tell us to quit being ourselves!" Clendinen, Dudley (1999). Out for Good. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-81091-3.
Edsall 2003, s. 333. Özgün İngilizcesi: "Stonewall has been compared to any number of acts of radical protest and defiance in American history from the Boston Tea Party on. But the best and certainly a more nearly contemporary analogy is with Rosa Parks' refusal to move to the back of the bus in Montgomery, Alabama, in December 1955, which sparked the modern civil rights movement. Within months after Stonewall radical gay liberation groups and newsletters sprang up in cities and on college campuses across America and then across all of Northern Europe as well." Edsall, Nicholas (2003). Toward Stonewall: Homosexuality and Society in the Modern Western World. University of Virginia Press. ISBN 0-8139-2211-9.
Clendinen 1999, s. 12. Özgün İngilizcesi: "...a secret legion of people, known of but discounted, ignored, laughed at or despised. And like the holders of a secret, they had an advantage which was a disadvantage, too, and which was true of no other minority group in the United States. They were invisible. Unlike African Americans, women, Native Americans, Jews, the Irish, Italians, Asians, Hispanics, or any other cultural group which struggled for respect and equal rights, homosexuals had no physical or cultural markings, no language or dialect which could identify them to each other, or to anyone else... But that night, for the first time, the usual acquiescence turned into violent resistance... From that night the lives of millions of gay men and lesbians, and the attitude toward them of the larger culture in which they lived, began to change rapidly. People began to appear in public as homosexuals, demanding respect. Clendinen, Dudley (1999). Out for Good. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-81091-3.
Deitcher 1995, s. 74. Özgün İngilizcesi: "I certainly don't see gay and lesbian history starting with Stonewall... and I don't see resistance starting with Stonewall. What I do see is a historical coming together of forces, and the sixties changed how human beings endured things in this society and what they refused to endure... Certainly something special happened on that night in 1969, and we've made it more special in our need to have what I call a point of origin... it's more complex than saying that it all started with Stonewall. Deitcher, David (1995). The Question of Equality: Lesbian and Gay Politics in America Since Stonewall. Scribner. ISBN 0-684-80030-6.
LaFrank 1999, s. 17. LaFrank, Kathleen (Ocak 1999). (ed.) (Ed.). National Historic Landmark Nomination: Stonewall(PDF). ABD İçişleri Bakanlığı: Millî Park Hizmeti. 24 Haziran 2011 tarihinde kaynağından arşivlendi(PDF). Erişim tarihi: 21 Haziran 2011.KB1 bakım: Fazladan yazı: editör listesi (link)
LaFrank 1999, s. 20. LaFrank, Kathleen (Ocak 1999). (ed.) (Ed.). National Historic Landmark Nomination: Stonewall(PDF). ABD İçişleri Bakanlığı: Millî Park Hizmeti. 24 Haziran 2011 tarihinde kaynağından arşivlendi(PDF). Erişim tarihi: 21 Haziran 2011.KB1 bakım: Fazladan yazı: editör listesi (link)
LaFrank 1999, s. 21. LaFrank, Kathleen (Ocak 1999). (ed.) (Ed.). National Historic Landmark Nomination: Stonewall(PDF). ABD İçişleri Bakanlığı: Millî Park Hizmeti. 24 Haziran 2011 tarihinde kaynağından arşivlendi(PDF). Erişim tarihi: 21 Haziran 2011.KB1 bakım: Fazladan yazı: editör listesi (link)
LaFrank 1999, s. 22. LaFrank, Kathleen (Ocak 1999). (ed.) (Ed.). National Historic Landmark Nomination: Stonewall(PDF). ABD İçişleri Bakanlığı: Millî Park Hizmeti. 24 Haziran 2011 tarihinde kaynağından arşivlendi(PDF). Erişim tarihi: 21 Haziran 2011.KB1 bakım: Fazladan yazı: editör listesi (link)
Dunlap, David (26 Haziran 1999). "Stonewall, Gay Bar That Made History, Is Made a Landmark" (İngilizce). The New York Times. Erişim tarihi: 30 Haziran 2011. Özgün İngilizcesi: "Let it forever be remembered that here - on this spot - men and women stood proud...so that we may be who we are, we may work where we will, live where we choose and love whom our hearts desire."
"Sit-in" teriminin bir sözcük oyunu. Tureng sözlüğüne göre "sit-in" 3 Haziran 2010 tarihinde Wayback Machine sitesinde arşivlendi., "bir yerde yapılan oturma eylemi (protesto amacıyla)".
DiGuglielmo, Joey (5 Haziran 2009). "Steps to Stonewall" (İngilizce). The Washington Blade. 3 Temmuz 2009 tarihinde kaynağından arşivlendi. Erişim tarihi: 2 Temmuz 2009.
"Sit-in" teriminin bir sözcük oyunu. Tureng sözlüğüne göre "sit-in" 3 Haziran 2010 tarihinde Wayback Machine sitesinde arşivlendi., "bir yerde yapılan oturma eylemi (protesto amacıyla)".
DiGuglielmo, Joey (5 Haziran 2009). "Steps to Stonewall" (İngilizce). The Washington Blade. 3 Temmuz 2009 tarihinde kaynağından arşivlendi. Erişim tarihi: 2 Temmuz 2009.
LaFrank 1999, s. 17. LaFrank, Kathleen (Ocak 1999). (ed.) (Ed.). National Historic Landmark Nomination: Stonewall(PDF). ABD İçişleri Bakanlığı: Millî Park Hizmeti. 24 Haziran 2011 tarihinde kaynağından arşivlendi(PDF). Erişim tarihi: 21 Haziran 2011.KB1 bakım: Fazladan yazı: editör listesi (link)
LaFrank 1999, s. 20. LaFrank, Kathleen (Ocak 1999). (ed.) (Ed.). National Historic Landmark Nomination: Stonewall(PDF). ABD İçişleri Bakanlığı: Millî Park Hizmeti. 24 Haziran 2011 tarihinde kaynağından arşivlendi(PDF). Erişim tarihi: 21 Haziran 2011.KB1 bakım: Fazladan yazı: editör listesi (link)
LaFrank 1999, s. 21. LaFrank, Kathleen (Ocak 1999). (ed.) (Ed.). National Historic Landmark Nomination: Stonewall(PDF). ABD İçişleri Bakanlığı: Millî Park Hizmeti. 24 Haziran 2011 tarihinde kaynağından arşivlendi(PDF). Erişim tarihi: 21 Haziran 2011.KB1 bakım: Fazladan yazı: editör listesi (link)
LaFrank 1999, s. 22. LaFrank, Kathleen (Ocak 1999). (ed.) (Ed.). National Historic Landmark Nomination: Stonewall(PDF). ABD İçişleri Bakanlığı: Millî Park Hizmeti. 24 Haziran 2011 tarihinde kaynağından arşivlendi(PDF). Erişim tarihi: 21 Haziran 2011.KB1 bakım: Fazladan yazı: editör listesi (link)