Marsha P. Johnson (August 24, 1945 – July 6, 1992) was a trans activist, sex worker, drag queen, performer and survivor. Marsha went by “Black Marsha” before settling on Marsha P. Johnson. The “P” stood for “Pay It No Mind,” which is what Marsha would say sarcastically in response to questions about her gender. In connection with sex work, Johnson claimed to have been arrested over 100 times, and was also shot once in the late-1970s. She was a prominent figure in the Stonewall uprising of 1969 and was one of the first drag queens to go to the Stonewall Inn after they began allowing women and drag queens inside. It was previously a bar for only gay men.
Following the Stonewall uprising, Johnson joined the Gay Liberation Front and participated in the first Christopher Street Liberation Pride rally on the first anniversary of the Stonewall rebellion in June 1970. One of Johnson’s most notable direct actions occurred in August 1970, staging a sit-in protest at Weinstein Hall at New York University alongside fellow GLF members after administrators canceled a dance when they found out was sponsored by gay organizations.
Shortly after that, along with Sylvia Rivera, she established the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) in 1970 which was a group committed to supporting transgender youth experiencing homelessness in New York City. The two of them became a visible presence at gay liberation marches and other radical political actions. In 1973, Johnson and Rivera were banned from participating in the gay pride parade by the gay and lesbian committee who were administering the event stating they “weren’t gonna allow drag queens” at their marches claiming they were “giving them a bad name”. Their response was to march defiantly ahead of the parade. During a gay rights rally at New York City Hall in the early ‘70s, a reporter asked Johnson why the group was demonstrating, Johnson shouted into the microphone, “Darling, I want my gay rights now!”
In 1974, Marsha was photographed by Andy Warhol in a series called ‘Ladies and Gentleman’ where Andy took Polaroid photos of drag queens (photos above).
Susan Stryker, an associate professor of gender and women’s studies at the University of Arizona said, “Marsha P. Johnson could be perceived as the most marginalized of people – black, queer, gender-nonconforming, poor.” Still, Stryker noted, “You might expect a person in such a position to be fragile, brutalized, beaten down. Instead, Marsha had this joie de vivre, a capacity to find joy in a world of suffering. She channeled it into political action, and did it with a kind of fierceness, grace, and whimsy, with a loopy, absurdist reaction to it all.”
Marsha’s advocacy and contributions to the LGBTQ+ community are an important part of our history and should be celebrated. Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, both key figures in the gay liberation movement, will be honored with a permanent installation in Greenwich Village which should be completed by 2021.
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