Uncovering the Stonewall Lesbian: Storme DeLarverie was there that infamous night. Now she's coming clean about it all.(Stonewall Veterans Association)

At a downstairs bar in the heart of Manhattan's Chelsea District, Storme DeLarverie appears almost nightly. She almost never discards the floppy-brim hat that covers a torrent of cotton-ball hair or the burgundy glasses that shield half her face, but she's never unapproachable. To passersby, elderly women may seem out of place in a neighborhood known for the young, muscular set, but DeLarverie is often the center of attention. Shy, in the polite but guarded way one might expect from a well-known celebrity, she returns hellos and accepts the occasional drink from the young, queer strangers who are awed by an elder in their midst, a strange sight in a city where there are few of her generation left. But DeLarverie is not a well-known celebrity, despite the fact that she's twice made history here. The first time, she made history as an emcee of the legendary Jewel Box Review at Harlem's Apollo Theater in the '50s and '60s, where she earned the distinction of being the only female performer in the nation's first integrated female-impersonation show.

The second was about 20 blocks south of the Apollo, outside the Stonewall Inn when, helping a man who had been shoved to the ground, she defied a police officer's order to "move on, faggot" and was subsequently clubbed in the face. The clubbing, by almost all accounts, was the spark that turned the demonstration outside the Stonewall into what has gone down in history as the Stonewall Riots. She disappeared amid the craziness of the riot that night and for 38 years has never identified herself. That is, until now.

I learned of the legend of the Stonewall Lesbian in 1997, when I read Martin Duberman's Stonewall. She is described by witnesses as a woman dressed in a man's clothes, who was clubbed when she got "lippy" with a cop, either because her handcuffs were too tight or because the police were trying to move her along. And all who saw her agree that the clubbing was the catalyst for the riots. Her detractors, whose position is that she was created to further mythologize the riots, posed the obvious question: If she did exist, why had she never come forward to claim her place in history?

I was consumed by the mystery, but it was nearly impossible to research. The few histories that exist mention her only in passing, and a "woman dressed in a man's clothes" is virtually impossible to distinguish within surviving photographs of the riots. This is why it came as such a shock nine years later when Tree--a Stonewall veteran I was interviewing--said, "I know the lesbian who was clubbed that night. Some people try to say it was a drag queen, but it wasn't. Her name is Storme. She's 85. I bet she'd talk to you." His implication was obvious: She's not getting any younger. She might finally be willing to tell her story, before it's ...