As we embark upon another Pride Month, it seems prudent for an annual reminder....
Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera deserve legendary status as activists, and trailblazers in the quest for LGBTQ+ rights.
They did not throw a first brick at Stonewall.
They were not at Stonewall when it started. Marsha showed up later on. Sylvia was on heroin in Bryant Park, and later begged historians to claim that she and Marsha threw the first bricks, or first cocktail glass.
Marsha and Sylvia were not Trans. They did not identify as Trans. There are videos were they talk about being boys in dresses. Towards the end of Sylvia's life, her activism began to embrace Transgenders more than others, and she herself identified that way, but this began in the 1990s.
In 1969, these two activists were drag queens, transvestites, street sex workers with wigs, 'boys in a dress' by their own definition, and created the STAR activist group "Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries", which advocated for greater visibility, housing and healthcare for other transvestites, gay, lesbian and also transsexuals (whom later were known as Transgender).
Transvestites and drag queens dress in women's clothing for a variety of reasons. Most do not gender identify as anything other than men.
Transgender people are a very specific subset of our community and deserve to have the incredible story they do have. They do not, however, deserve to be known as the folks who 'started it all'. Stonewall, the first Pride, Gay Liberation Front, Mattachine Society - this was a group effort, led almost entirely by gay men, some with wigs, and the movement later ballooned into a larger community of activism including the full Queer spectrum.
The Trans trajectory owes a lot to Marsha, Sylvia, and the GAY MEN of the past who fought for equal rights.
Resist the false narrative of the Trans Hero with the First Brick. Know the truth.
Happy Pride!