Content warning for suicide and murder

“I’ve had so much trouble; it’s a miracle I’m still here!” – Marsha P. Johnson.

Born on August 24, 1945, in New Jersey, Marsha P. Johnson’s life is a more recent part of queer history. She was a Black transgender woman who worked as a sex worker, performed as a drag queen, and fought against police brutality. Marsha P. Johnson stands with Sappho as one of the most iconic women in queer history—something that people in her own time tried to prevent.

Alongside fellow activist Sylvia Rivera, the two founded Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR). They worked to provide housing and support to gay, transgender, and gender-nonconforming people, focusing on fellow sex-workers of color. This is not what she is most well known for, but it seems to be one of her most proud accomplishments. As someone who regularly experienced homelessness and violence because of her gender and presentation, she cared deeply for her community. Within the STAR home, she was known as the "mother."

Friends remembered Marsha for her generosity, later sharing stories of her buying a box of cookies with her last couple of dollars to give out to the women who worked the same streets as her. She was known to spend much of her time on Christopher Street in New York City, a street known for its sizable queer population, of which she was a well-known figure. Both because of her many friendships and her presentation.

Though cisgender queer people were often too scared to be associated with Marsha P. Johnson, she walked down the street in full drag. This did not go without notice from more mainstream sources either. Andy Warhol, a famous photographer, put her in an art series called "Ladies and Gentleman" about transgender people. However, she could not see the exhibit, as the gallery hosting the show would not admit someone who looked like her.

What she is most well known for is her part in the Stonewall Riots.

The Stonewall Riots were a series of complex historical moments deserving of an exclusive article. However, for the sake of those unfamiliar, we have summarized the events here.

On June 28, 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn without warning. The Stonewall Inn was a gay bar and thus faced regular raids; neither the patrons nor staff were unused to this. Nevertheless, that night, as the police attempted to arrest people from the bar, something shifted. The people in the bar fought back. One of the patrons, and some say the first to throw a shot glass, was Marsha P. Johnson. It was one of the most publicized protests in American queer history. It is remembered as a turning point in the fight for queer rights in America and is recognized globally. They were moving the queer community from behind closed doors and in hushed voices to out on the streets with megaphones.

While the most common version of events cites Marsha as the leader and the one who threw the "first brick," accounts contradict often. Some say it was Marsha P. Johnson with a shot glass; others say it was Stormé DeLarverie with a brick. In one interview with Marsha, she says she came after the riot had already started.

Regardless, Marsha P. Johnson is known for being a large part of the Stonewall riots, making the next part of the story rather disappointing.

While in more everyday conversations, the story has often been that this was a universally galvanizing moment in history that is not a reflection of reality. Like current events, some of the more conservative queer organizations were against what happened at Stonewall, calling for compliance to the same police beating and arresting people. A friend of Marsha P. Johnson, Randy Williams, admitted in an interview with Marsha, by Eric Marcus, that he was afraid of Stonewall setting back the advocacy he had spent so much time on, saying:

"When this happened, I was horrified because it was civil disorder. Somewhere I saw a picture from the Stonewall, and it had a big sign up from the Mattachine Society, which was one of my base groups; the Mattachine Society asked citizens [...] to respect law and order. To act in a lawful manner.

[...]

But the thing was you were dealing with a new thing, and it shows that what my generation did, we built the ideology. You know, are we sick, aren't we sick, what are the scientific facts, how have we been brainwashed by society, [...] that's what we did. But it literally took Stonewall. And here I was considered the first militant visionary leader of the gay movement, to not even realize when the revolution (if you want to call it this) this thing that I thought would never happen, that a small nuclei of people would become a mass social movement was occurring. I was against it. And I'm very happy Stonewall happened. I’m very happy the way things worked out."

At the time, the response was neither universally positive nor negative, Denise Harmon writing:

"The next night gay people from all over New York marched down Christopher Street in the first Gay Pride March in history. In fact, for several nights running, large crowds of gay people challenged the right of the police to invade their social gathering places. The street battles that occurred as a result of continuing police harassment and brutality (with the police actually drawing their guns on one occasion) made it clear that gay people now had the consciousness to fight back when pushed too hard. The Stonewall rebellion was more than justified and long overdue.

[…]

Gay pride is gay unity, strength, and love for each other. It affirms our pride in ourselves and in our lifestyle. For us to come to the realization that our love is right and good is a beautiful and courageous act. Gay pride is also about not feeling guilty about being gay, but feeling beautiful, strong in love, and unafraid. We refuse to be frightened anymore. We must join with all our oppressed sisters and brothers, gay and straight, to build a new society, one where all can determine their own lives free from all forms of oppression."

On the opposing side, touting arguments about respectability and general transphobia, some of the cisgender queer people tried to push Marsha P. Johnson out of the spotlight as soon as she had entered it. Believing people like Johnson would "give the movement a bad name," these attitudes led to the eventual attempt to ban transvestites and transsexuals from pride parades in 1978.

Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera responded to this ban by holding up a banner as they walked in front of the pride march, leading the whole parade.

Later in her life, a group of her friends got together to make a documentary about her life called "Pay it No Mind," quoting her response when someone asked about her gender. It is largely because of this documentary that Marsha P. Johnson's memory remains so fresh for many in the queer community. While it is no longer the only film revolving around Marsha P. Johnson, it was the first and holds many of the quotes and stories that circulate about her now. Including a lengthy interview with Marsha, the film is currently available to watch for free on YouTube. In 1992, before the film was completed, her body was found in the Hudson River.

Her friends reported that she was not suicidal and had been harassed earlier in the same place her body was found. Still, the police ruled it a suicide.

After decades of lobbying by activists, the cold case was reopened as a homicide in 2012. It has not and likely will not be solved; police were unwilling to investigate while there was still evidence to be found.

The reason she has not been forgotten has not been because of the queer community as a whole, but because of the people who knew her. Because of their work and the work of so many Black transgender activists, her name and story are still remembered. Though she was pushed aside by some, she was loved by many others.

Films about the Stonewall riots have replaced her with white cisgender gay men. Transgender exclusionary radical feminists still work to erase her name from history. Despite all of that, she is everything the queer community should be proudest of.

References and Further Reading

Disclaimer: some of the sources may contain triggering material

Born, T. (n.d.). Marsha “Pay it no Mind” Johnson. Challenging Gender Boundaries: A Trans Biography Project by Students of Dr. Catherine Jacquet. Retrieved March 23, 2021, from https://outhistory.org/exhibits/show/tgi-bios/marsha-p-johnson

Feinberg, L. (2006, September 24). Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries. Workers World. https://www.workers.org/2006/us/lavender-red-73/

France, D. (2017, April 21). The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson [Documentary]. Netflix. https://www.netflix.com/title/80189623

Harmon, D. (1973). Stonewall Means Fight Back. Digital Transgender Voices. https://www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net/files/cv43nw80h

King, J. (2015, June 25). Meet the Trans Women of Color Who Helped Put Stonewall on the Map. Mic. https://www.mic.com/articles/121256/meet-marsha-p-johnson-and-sylvia-rivera-transgender-stonewall-veterans

Michael Kasino. (2012, October 15). Pay It No Mind—The Life and Times of Marsha P. Johnson. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjN9W2KstqE

Reynolds, D. (2016, June 22). Roland Emmerich: “Stonewall Was a White Event.” http://www.advocate.com/film/2016/6/22/roland-emmerich-stonewall-was-white-event

Rivera, S. (2007). Sylvia Rivera's talk at LGMNY, June 2001 Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center, New York City. CENTRO: Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies, 19(1), 116+.

White, E. (2019). The Stonewall Reader (The New York Public Library, Ed.). Penguin Classics.