50 Years After Stonewall Gays Scream Down Trans Woman Again
They say history repeats itself, and it hurts just as much the second time.
The Stonewall Inn in downtown New York City is, historically, the epicenter of the LGBT rights movement. In June, 1969, a routine police raid on the iconic gay bar located on a quaint, tree-lined boulevard, spilled out into the street and escalated into a violent riot that would change the social and political terrain for LGBT Americans nationwide.
The Stonewall Inn has since been dubbed a historic landmark, and the city recently announced plans to erect a statue of two of the most visible activists to come out of the riots. Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson were instrumental in maintaining momentum post Stonewall as they organized rallies, publicly protested police brutality and inequality and put a spotlight on the plethora of issues facing the community at the time- such as a weaponized legal system and corrupt officers that saw thousands of LGBT folks brutally beaten and unjustly incarcerated.
In 1973, Rivera took the stage at the 4th annual Christopher Street Liberation Day Rally in Washington Square Park, which was heavily attended by gay men, lesbians and, in fewer numbers, transgender folks. A mere four years after the riots at Stonewall, Rivera and Johnson were the most visible transgender figures in New York City. Having spearheaded initiatives to provide outreach support for gay men in prison and subsequently, following a sit-in at Weinstein Hall at New York University in 1970, the two established S.T.A.R. (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries) on the lower East Side, which would be the first LGBT youth shelter in North America.
Despite her broad activism for everyone beneath the LGBT umbrella, on that stage, Sylvia Rivera was shouted at, insulted and booed by the gays and lesbians in the audience… because she was transgender.
This resulted in her iconic speech, “Ya’ll Better Quiet Down” wherein she angrily scolded those dismissing her. In the footage, you can hear the frustration in her voice and watch the pain of betrayal burn on her face. These were the very people she was fighting alongside to liberate.
