āThe story of one June night in 1969 in Greenwich Village often doesnāt mention how the outlaws and outcasts who patronized the Stonewall Inn made their living.ā - Historian Melinda Chateauvert
āIndeed, Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera ā two trans women of color who have both been credited with throwing the proverbial āfirst brickā at Stonewall had sold sex.
In the years following Stonewall, Rivera and other sex workers united in the Gay Liberation Front and Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries, from which they launched organizing campaigns to combat discrimination, demand acceptance of gender and sexual nonconformity, and ultimately call for the overthrow of capitalism.
The erasure of sex workers from Stonewall began almost immediately. As early as 1973, āRivera had to fight to speak at the gay pride rally celebrating Stonewall because the crowd didnāt want to hear from a transgender sex worker.ā As mainstream lgbtq rights organizations gained respectability, these movements distanced themselves from their sex-worker pioneers.
Modern lgbtq right activists owe sex workers a debt. Repaying it will mean making sex-workersā rights a policy priority, making sure that todayās organized activism is inclusive of their presence, their needsāand their history.ā
āOnly a handful of activists in the lgbt movement were there at Stonewall and never stopped their advocacy work until the day they died.Ā Brenda Howard, 58, who died in Queens on June 28 of colon cancer, was one of those genuine articles and her memorial at the LGBT Community Center on July 31 brought together all the different aspects of her life as trouble maker, strategist, editor, Jew, friend, lover and distinguished phone sex worker.ā
Throughout her lifetime, Howard was unapologetic about her sexuality, which included kink and polyamory, and worked for decades to increase understanding and visibility related to them. She also worked as a phone sex operator in the 1980s.ā
Please stop censoring sex work from your pride history posts.
