In THE LEGEND OF GEORGIA MCBRIDE, Rexy reads Casey for filth (i.e. lectures him) on the history of the gay rights movement. Below is the glossary of the people and events she cites, and why they are important to know:

PEOPLE

The Lady Chablis (March 11, 1957 – September 8, 2016), also known as The Grand Empress and The Doll, was an American actress, author, and transgender club performer. Through exposure in the bestselling nonfiction book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, and its 1997 film adaptation, she became one of the first trans performers to be introduced to a wide audience.

Hedda Lettuce is an American drag queen, comedian and singer who lives and works in New York City. Hedda Lettuce debuted in 1991 on the Manhattan Cable TV show The Brenda and Glennda Show. Lettuce's appearances include MTV, Comedy Central, The People's Court and a cameo on Sex and the City as Samantha's ex-beau turned Bingo Drag impersonator. Lettuce's film appearances include To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar; Cruise Control, The Look, Red Lipstick, and Musical Chairs.

Lypsinka (born John Epperson April 24, 1955) is an American drag artist, actor, pianist, vocalist, and writer. As Lypsinka, he lip-syncs to meticulously edited, show-length soundtracks culled from snippets of outrageous 20th-century female performances in movies and song.

Divine (birth name Harris Glenn Milstead, October 19, 1945 – March 7, 1988), was an American actor, singer, and drag queen. Closely associated with independent filmmaker John Waters, Divine was a character actor, usually performing female roles in cinematic and theatrical productions, and adopted a female drag persona for his music career. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, to a conservative middle-class family, Milstead developed an early interest in drag while working as a women's hairdresser. By the mid-1960s he had embraced the city's countercultural scene and befriended Waters, who gave him the name "Divine" and the tagline of: "The most beautiful woman in the world...almost."

Along with his friend David Lochary, Divine joined Waters' acting troupe, the Dreamlanders, and adopted female roles for their experimental short films Roman Candles (1966), Eat Your Makeup (1968), and The Diane Linkletter Story (1969). Again in drag, he took a lead role in both of Waters' early full-length movies, Mondo Trasho (1969) and Multiple Maniacs (1970), the latter of which attracted press attention for the group. Milstead next starred in Waters' Pink Flamingos (1972), which was a hit on the U.S. midnight movie circuit, became a cult classic, and established Milstead's fame in the American counterculture.

After starring as the lead role in Waters' next film, Female Trouble (1974), Divine moved on to theater, appearing in several avant-garde performances alongside San Francisco drag collective The Cockettes. He followed this with a performance in Tom Eyen's play Women Behind Bars and its sequel, The Neon Woman. Continuing his cinematic work, he starred in two more of Waters' films, Polyester (1981) and Hairspray (1988), the latter of which represented his breakthrough into mainstream cinema and for which he was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male. Independent of Waters, he also appeared in a number of other films, such as Lust in the Dust (1985) and Trouble in Mind (1985), seeking to diversify his repertoire by playing male roles.

Divine had a condition called cardiomegaly. Stress on his enlarged heart led to a heart attack that killed him shortly after the release of Hairspray. Described by People magazine as the "Drag Queen of the Century",^[1] Divine has remained a cult figure, particularly within the LGBT community, and has provided the inspiration for fictional characters, artworks, and songs. Various books and documentary films devoted to his life have also been produced, including Divine Trash (1998) and I Am Divine (2013).

Barbette (Born Vander Clyde Broadway, December 19, 1899 – August 5, 1973), was an American female impersonator, high-wire performer, and trapeze artist born in Texas. Barbette attained great popularity throughout the United States but his greatest fame came in Europe and especially Paris, in the 1920s and 1930s.

Barbette began performing as an aerialist at around the age of 14 as one-half of a circus act called The Alfaretta Sisters. After a few years of circus work, Barbette went solo and adopted his exotic-sounding pseudonym. He performed in full drag, revealing himself as male only at the end of his act.

Following a career-ending illness or injury (the sources disagree on the cause), which left him in constant pain, Barbette returned to Texas but continued to work as a consultant for motion pictures as well as training and choreographing aerial acts for a number of circuses. After years of dealing with chronic pain, Barbette died by suicide on August 5, 1973. Both in life and following his death, Barbette served as an inspiration to a number of artists, including Jean Cocteau and Man Ray.

The Stonewall riots, also known as the Stonewall uprising, Stonewall rebellion, or simply Stonewall, were a series of protests by members of the gay community in response to a police raid that began in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. Patrons of the Stonewall, other Village lesbian and gay bars, and neighborhood street people fought back when the police became violent. The riots are widely considered the watershed event that transformed the gay liberation movement and the twentieth-century fight for LGBT rights in the United States

As was common for American gay bars at the time, the Stonewall Inn was owned by the Italian-American Mafia. While police raids on gay bars were routine in the 1960s, officers quickly lost control of the situation at the Stonewall Inn on June 28, 1969. Tensions between New York City Police and gay residents of Greenwich Village erupted into more protests the next evening and again several nights later. Within weeks, Village residents organized into activist groups demanding the right to live openly regarding their sexual orientation, and without fear of being arrested. The new activist organizations concentrated on confrontational tactics, and within months three newspapers were established to promote rights for gay men and lesbians.

A year after the uprising, to mark the anniversary on June 28, 1970, the first gay pride marches took place in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco. Within a few years, gay rights organizations were founded across the US and the world. Today, LGBT Pride events are held annually worldwide in June in honor of the Stonewall riots.

The Stonewall National Monument was established at the site in 2016 An estimated 5 million participants commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising and on June 6, 2019, New York City Police Commissioner James P. O'Neill rendered a formal apology for the actions of officers at Stonewall in 1969.

The Mattachine Society, founded in 1950, was an early national gay rights organization in the United States, preceded by several covert and open organizations, such as Chicago's Society for Human Rights. Communist and labor activist Harry Hay formed the group with a collection of male friends in Los Angeles to protect and improve the rights of gay men. Branches formed in other cities, and by 1961 the Society had splintered into regional groups. At the beginning of gay rights protest, news on Cuban prison work camps for homosexuals inspired Mattachine Society to organize protests at the United Nations and the White House in 1965.

ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) is an international, grassroots political group working to end the AIDS pandemic. The group works to improve the lives of people with AIDS through direct action, medical research, treatment and advocacy, and working to change legislation and public policies

ACT UP was formed on March 12, 1987, at the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center in New York City. Larry Kramer was asked to speak as part of a rotating speaker series, and his well-attended speech focused on action to fight AIDS. Kramer spoke out against the current state of the Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC), which he perceived as politically impotent. Kramer had co-founded the GMHC but had resigned from its board of directors in 1983. According to Douglas Crimp, Kramer posed a question to the audience: "Do we want to start a new organization devoted to political action?" The answer was "a resounding yes." Approximately 300 people met two days later to form ACT UP.

At the Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, in October 1987, ACT UP New York made their debut on the national stage, as an active and visible presence in both the march, the main rally, and at the civil disobedience at the United States Supreme Court Building the following day. Inspired by this new approach to radical, direct action, other participants in these events returned home to multiple cities and formed local ACT UP chapters in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Rhode Island, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and other locations. ACT UP spread internationally. In many countries separate movements arose based on the American model. For example, the famous gay rights activist Rosa von Praunheim co-founded ACT UP in Germany.

Christopher Street is a street in the West Village neighborhood of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is the continuation of 9th Street west of Sixth Avenue.

It is most notable for the Stonewall Inn, which is located on Christopher Street near the corner of Seventh Avenue South. As a result of the Stonewall riots in 1969, the street became the epicenter of the world's gay rights movement in the late 1970s. To this day, the inn and the street serve as an international symbol of gay pride.

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