the actual pride month rundown
- marsha p. johnson repeatedly identified as a gay man and drag queen and survived into an era where the language did already exist if he chose to identify as transsexual. he explicitly stated that he was not transsexual and claimed that all transsexual people were also homosexual.
- sylvia rivera did identify as a transsexual woman (and made disparaging speeches about lesbians). she was not an ally to lesbians. lesbians and transwomen have not always been allies.
- neither of them were there when the stonewall riots began, according to marsha’s own testimony. sylvia was sleeping off a drug trip on a park bench, and by the time marsha arrived at stonewall, the riots were already in full swing.
- storme delarverie, a mixed black gender-nonconforming lesbian and drag king, may have been the one who incited the stonewall riots. she never identified as a transman despite surviving into an an era where the language was made accessible to do so. accounts differ as to who started the riots.
- stonewall was not a special haven for trans people and drag artists, it was just some bar where gay people met up. by all accounts, it wasn’t even a good bar.
- pride as a festival and parade was invented by gay men, lesbians, and bisexual people. fred sergeant is one of those gay men, and he has been beaten (in recent years, as an elderly man) by trans people and their allies due to his views on medical transition. non-homosexual trans people were unheard of in this era.
- this is just united states history, and not even the beginning of gay rights activism in the united states alone. the rest of the world didn’t necessarily base its gay rights activism on stonewall.
