lgbt_history: “I don’t know what I am if I’m not a woman.” – Marsha P. Johnson, 1971
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Picture: “S.T.A.R. PEOPLE ARE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE,” Marsha P. Johnson (August 24, 1945 – July 6, 1992), Albany, New York, March 1971. Photo by Diana Davies, c/o @nyplpicturecollection. [TW]
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Marsha P. Johnson, who was born seventy-two years ago today, was one of the founders of the queer liberation movement. She was, among other things, part of the Stonewall Riots, a founding member of the Gay Liberation Front and the Gay Activists Alliance, and a co-founder (with Sylvia Rivera) of the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (S.T.A.R.), the first organization dedicated to assisting homeless drag queens, trans women, and survival (i.e., sex) workers.
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While the story of Johnson having thrown “the first” brick at Stonewall oversimplifies the events that triggered the riots (she later told @makinggayhistorypodcast, for example, that she “didn’t get downtown until about two o’clock, because when I got downtown the place was already on fire…The riots had already started”), she was on the front lines of the queer liberation movement from the outset (to be clear: police treatment of drag queens and trans women played a large part in starting the riots, and Johnson was there for much of the most intense fighting).
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In the face of constant attempts to exclude trans people from the movement, Johnson remained a symbol of her community’s courage, kindness, and resolve.
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Johnson, who relied on survival work for much of her life, struggled with mental health issues, and was prone to bouts of great anger; she was not, however, known to be depressive or suicidal.
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On July 6, 1992, days after New York’s Pride, Johnson’s body was pulled from the Hudson River near Christopher Street; she was forty-six.
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Despite friends telling police that Johnson had been facing increasing harassment, and that she had been missing for days, her death was ruled a suicide; in 2002, police ruled there was, in fact, not enough information to call the death a suicide, instead classifying it as “undetermined.”
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In December 2012, the NYPD officially reopened the case. #Resist #BlackTransLivesMatter #MarshaPJohnson
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