According to historians Harry M. Benshoff and Sean Griffin, the movie, featuring "sexy cowboys and a cross-dressing sheriff", "explore[d] and exploit[ed] homosocial-homosexual boundaries".
[1] The movie came out during a time when, according to the journal Southern Spaces, there was "continuing public anxiety over and regulation of sex and sexuality, including censorship in print and visual media.
[3][4] At the start of August 1969, Lonesome Cowboys was airing nightly at the Ansley Mall Mini-Cinema, a movie theater in Atlanta.
[4] The bust happened approximately 15 minutes into the movie and involved 10 police officers, with 3 blocking exits to prevent audience members from getting out.
[6] The following year, on the first anniversary of the Stonewall riots, approximately 100 people marched along Peachtree Street in an event that would precede Atlanta Gay Pride Festival.
The same article goes on to state that "[w]hile Stonewall is credited with ushering in a more radical era of LGBTQ politics, many early activists saw the raid at the Ansley theater as their galvanizing moment".
[5] Speaking about the raid in a 2019 article, Georgia Public Broadcasting stated that "...Stonewall, when it happened, had little effect on gay life in the South.