Sebastian C. Trisolino (November 8, 1935-July 8, 2010)
by Jonathan Ned Katz
I published a column on the Stonewall rebellion in the national gay magazine The Advocate on June 30, 1989[1]. After relating the story of the angry resistance that resulted from a police raid on a gay bar, I added:
- . . . I was reading The Advocate recently in a sandwich shop near where I work [in New York City], when my waiter, Sebastian, introduced himself, and learning I was a gay-history forager, told me about his arrest in the Stonewall raid. “When the police booked us, they asked our names,” he said. “I said ‘My name is Martha Washington.’ They said: “‘Every faggot’s name is Martha Washington’”. Sebastian raised his head defiantly: “I told ‘em ‘Well, I’m the Italian Martha Washington!’”
I ended my column: “The resistant spirit of Stonewall.”
My informant’s name was Sebastian C. Trisolino and he died in Utica, New York, on July 8, 2010.[2] I believe he’d want me to tell you the bit of his history I've related above.
Other than his self report, however, no other evidence of Sebastian's arrest at Stonewall has so far surfaced. Did he, for example, tell friends about his arrest soon after the Stonewall Riots at the end of June 1969? Numbers of people are now claim they took part in or were arrested in the Stonewall Rebellion. I have no reason to doubt Sebastian's story of his arrest but I can offer nothing but his statement to me. But his story does resonate with the discovery that one of the names of Stonewall arrestees documented on OutHistory.org was most likely a pseudonym.
As an informant told me after I revealed the names of four Stonewall arrestees, documented in New York City police records, including Vincent DePaul:
This is the name of a popular Catholic saint who was also the name of every parish’s charitable society (“The St. Vincent de Paul Society”). Anyone raised a Catholic in the ‘50s and ‘60s would know the name.
DePaul University, in Chicago, also "derives its title and fundamental mission from St. Vincent de Paul, the founder of the Congregation of the Mission, a religious community whose members, Vincentians, established and continue to sponsor DePaul."[3]
At the very least then, the story that Sebastian Trisolino told me does involve the use of a pseudonym as a resistant act by a person claiming to have been arrested at the Stonewall Inn. Perhaps future research will provide more information about Sebastian and about the use of pseudonyms by Stonewall or other arrestees. I ask the public to leave any further information in the Comment box below. Thanks
Notes
- ↑ Jonathan Ned Katz, TITLE OF ARTICLE?, The Advocate, June 30, 1989, page 39.
- ↑ Legacy.com obituary of Sebastian C. Trisolino. MarineChat.com obituary. Nunn and McGrath Funeral Home obituary. Tributes.com obituary. All accessed August 1, 2011. A friend of Sebastian C. Trisolino, confirmed that he was gay or bisexual, and after reading my report said: "Yes, that is something that he would say!!!" (Email, June 6, 2011). I note, also, that Sebastian was born Catholic, a fact that resonates with the pseudonym Vincent DePaul, and that Sebastian had been a marine, a fact that resonates with his claimed resistant act at Stonewall.
- ↑ From the website of DePaul University, accessed August 1, 2011: The University's statement continues: "Motivated by the example of St. Vincent, who instilled a love of God by leading his contemporaries in serving urgent human needs, the DePaul community is above all characterized by ennobling the God-given dignity of each person. This religious personalism is manifested by the members of the DePaul community in a sensitivity to and care for the needs of each other and of those served, with a special concern for the deprived members of society.
