On this day, 2 July 1951, transgender revolutionary icon Sylvia Rivera, of Puerto Rican and Venezuelan descent, was born in the Bronx, New York (content note: child abuse).
Rejected by her family due to her "effeminate" behaviour Rivera ran away from home aged 11, and was sex trafficked in the Times Square area.
In the 1960s, Rivera became involved in movements against the Vietnam war and for Black liberation, then with the Stonewall rebellion threw herself into the burgeoning gay liberation movement, taking part in activities with the Gay Liberation Front, and later the Gay Activists Alliance.
With her friend Marsha P Johnson and others, she co-founded Street Transvestites Action Revolutionaries, a radical group which raised money to rent an apartment to house and support homeless gay and trans young people. Much of the funding was provided by Rivera and Johnson engaging in sex work.
Rivera was a critic of the more middle-class, cis gendered (i.e. not transgender) leadership of much of the gay rights movement, especially when a Gay Rights Bill which was eventually passed in 1986 omitted trans people, commenting: "They have a little backroom deal without inviting Miss Sylvia and some of the other trans activists to this backroom deal with these politicians. The deal was, 'You take them out, we’ll pass the bill'".
After the suspected murder of Johnson in 1992, Rivera's life went "off the rails", according to her friend, historian Eric Marcus, and she ended up homeless again living on an abandoned pier in Manhattan and drinking heavily. She did get involved in movement again, and in 2001 relaunched STAR, renamed Street Transgender Action Revolutionaries, but she died the following year of liver cancer.
Rivera is today remembered as one of the key activists who "who made sure there was a 'T' with the 'LGB…'".
Learn more about the LGBT+ liberation movement in our podcast eps 25-26: https://workingclasshistory.com/2019/05/13/e21-22-the-stonewall-riots-and-pride-at-50/
Rivera and these groups are also featured in our book, Be Gay, Do Crime: Everyday Acts of Queer Resistance and Rebellion, available with global shipping: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/products/be-gay-do-crime-everyday-acts-of-queer-resistance-and-rebellion
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