Marsha P. Johnson went down in history as a famous black LGBTQ rights activist, but she also impacted society in many other ways.
Marsha fought on behalf of the LGBTQ community, but she also fought against oppressive policing, and on behalf of prisoners, sex workers, and those with HIV/AIDS. In a time where the LGBTQ community didn’t commonly use the term transgender, she described herself as a transvestite, gay, and a drag queen. She also led her life on the streets as a sex worker, while she battled her own mental illness.
Johnson moved from her home city of Elizabeth, New Jersey with 15 dollars in her pocket. Originally going to call herself Black Marsha, she chose Marsha P. Johnson instead. The P stood for “Pay it no mind”, her attitude when reporters and others would ask her rude questions about her gender. According to UCNJ, she used to say, “Don’t let anybody tell you what to do, be who you want to be.”
At Stonewall, the first in a series of riots for gay rights, Johnson rioted alongside members of the LGBTQ community against the brutality of the police’s harassment of the LGBTQ community in the Village and other areas of Manhattan. The riots lasted 6 days. People tipped cars, threw bricks, and set fires, but Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, another homeless transgender prostitute, emerged as leaders of the movement.
Together Johnson and Rivera would go on to create STAR, Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries. Their group offered housing to the homeless and to transgender youth so they wouldn’t feel as pressured to enter the dangerous world of sex work. Johnson and Rivera created the first LGBTQ youth shelter in the United States, and the first organization in the United States led by trans women of color.
In 1992, the community found Johnson’s dead body in the Hudson River. Her cause of death still remains unknown to this day, as the police refused to investigate the death of a prostitute and instead chalked it up as a suicide.
In 2019, the city of New York announced the building of a monument to honor not only Marsha P. Johnson but also Sylvia Rivera in their advocacy for LGBTQ members, the homeless, and HIV positive youth. The city specifically wanted this monument to bring attention to young people of color, who often feel marginalized by some of the broader LGBTQ rights efforts. According to ncpolicywatch, at least 26 transgender people were murdered in 2018, with countless more dying of suicide. Death rates continue to be much higher amongst black transgender women, much like Johnson herself, whose death could have been a murder.
At AFHS, many trans students feel underrepresented by not only the student council but also by the administration. In 2018, a petition passed around the school in support of gender-neutral bathroom changes to make them more accessible to students. More than 100 students signed the petition in a single day.
Comments