The Stonewall riots are often pointed to as the start of the gay and lesbian liberation movement in the US, although in fact they were not. Perhaps the fact that they occurred in New York, the center of the news industry, explains some of why this idea is so widespread. However, forty years ago, on April 17 and 18, 1965, a small group of ten conservatively-dressed gays and lesbians from the Mattachine Society and Daughters of Bilitis picketed the White House and the UN building in protest of anti-gay policies in the US and Cuba. This has also been called the first LGB protest in the US, and it also isn't. Nor was Stonewall the first uprising to prominently feature transwoman, or as everyone called them back then "drag queens", conflating them with gay men who occasionally donned drag. In 1959, at Cooper's Do-nuts in LA, a similar conflict erupted. This was followed in July 18, 1966 by a clash at Gene Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco's Tenderloin. Meanwhile, straight supporters got into the act, with arrests of lawyers and ministers at the Dec. 31, 1964 New Year's Eve party of the Council on Religion and the Homosexual, which became quite a kerfuffle.
It's all a lot more complicated than "Stonewall as the start of it all". If I had to pick a single date, I might pick December 10, 1924, with the founding of Society for Human Rights in Chicago, despite the fact that it was quickly shut down by the police. Not shut down by the police was the Mattachine Society, dating to November 11, 1950, and the Daughters of Bilitis, from October 1955.This really was the start of it all in the US, though more was going on in Europe.