Heroes

[bcholmes]

In 1994, when Ontario was debating the merits of same-sex marriage, I was working with a Toronto-area trans group. I spent a lot of time working on the group's periodical. Every few months, I'd go through a bunch of news articles that had been sent out through a trans news email list, and I'd précis the various stories into one-paragraph summaries. These summaries would be printed in the sidebar of the first several pages of the mag.

This particular trans group was mostly dominated by upper-middle-class self-identified crossdressers, and many of the articles were about vacuous things like make-up and clothing, but I was always very pleased with the summarized blurbs about trans issues from around the world. Even though we weren't American, we had good coverage of American issues like DOMA and ENDA as well as tragic events such as the Brandon Teena murder, and the avoidable death of Tyra Hunter.

It was also the year of the 25th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, and I recall a lot of the unfortunate conflicts between trans communities and the organizers of the Stonewall anniversary committee. I recall sitting down, one day, to summarize for my group's trans magazine, how one of the anniversary committee's organizers had gotten fed up and finally announced that the trans community was trying to ride on the coattails of the gay and lesbian liberation movement by inserting themselves into Stonewall anniversary events.

Of course, my view on Stonewall differed quite a bit. While Wikipedia suggests that the riots are "frequently cited as the first instance in American history when gays and lesbians fought back against a government-sponsored system that persecuted homosexuals," for me, it was the story about how genderqueer people kick-started the LGBT movement. If anything, I felt, middle-class gays and lesbians were riding the coattails of genderqueer people. I acknowledge that I think it's a bit simplistic to suggest that it was us transfolk, alone, who made it happen, but sometimes that's the way I view it.

Around about then, I started to acknowledge two people, Silvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson (the 'P.' stands for 'Pay it no mind'), as two of my heroes. Two years earlier, while doing my news article summarization job, I'd had to type up the story of how Marsha P. Johnson was found dead in the river, and although there was some reason to suspect foul play, the cops weren't gonna look into it. These, of course, were members of the same police force that Marsha P. Johnson helped to barricade in the Stonewall Inn in 1969.

I accept that this is a simplistic worldview, but some days I genuinely believe that Silvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson created the modern LGBT movement together. And they're two of my heroes.

Marsha P. Johnson was an African-American trans woman. And part of me is glad that she didn't have to see this.

Comments

[moondancerdrake.livejournal.com]

Inserting themselves? Do the leaders nowdays bother with the history of thier own movement? I admit some imformation is hard to come by, but if you really look it's there. I'd like to learn more about Silvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson (pay it no mind, that is the best!). Where would you sugest would be the best and most reliable sourses of info about them?

[lovecraftienne.livejournal.com]

Good heroes. Yep.

Solidarity, sister. :)

[rbowspryte.livejournal.com]

Each act of war
is whispered from
Queen to Queen
held like a lost child
then released into the water below.
Names float into rivers
gentle blooms of African Violets.

I will be the one that dangles
from the side but
does not let go.

The police insisted you leapt
into the Hudson
driftwood body
in sequin lace
rhinestone beads
that pull us to the bottom.
No serious investigation -- just another
dead Queen.

I am the one who sings Billie Holiday
as a prayer song to you, Marsha P.

We all choke on splintered bones,
dismembered screams,
the knowledge that each
death is our own.

I pour libations of dove's blood,
leave offerings of yam and corn
to call back all of our lost spirits.

Marsha P, your face glitters with
Ashanti gold
as you sashay across the moonscape
in a ruby chariot ablaze.
Sister, you drag
us behind you.

We are gathered on the bridge between
survival and despair.
I will be the one wearing gardenias
in my hair,
thinking about
how we all go back to water.
Thinking about
the night
you did not jump.

I will make voodoo dolls
of the police and other thugs,
walk to the edge,
watch the river rise to meet them.

I will be the one
with the rattlesnake that binds
my left arm and
in my right hand I will carry
a wooden hatchet to
cut away at the
silence of your murder.

Each of us go on,
pretend to pay it no mind,
bite down hard on the steel of despair.

We will be the ones that gnaw off our own
legs rather than let them win.

We will be the ones mourning
the death of yet another Queen.

Girl, I will put your photo
on my ancestral altar
to remember all of us
who never jumped.

Miss Johnson, your meanings
sparkle like stars dappled
across the piers of the
Hudson River.

Gathered on the bridge
we resist the water.

[laura-seabrook.livejournal.com]

1994 was i think the first time I read any of your stuff, on alt.transgender maybe. Primitive days compared to the ease of the net now.

At that time I was part of a lobby group here in Australia. I'd barely started transition and the experience was not a supportive one, which mostly burnt me out from politics as such.

Very hard to find permanence or continuity in communities that change so much, let alone progress.

[jiawen]

I just finished reading Stryker's Transgender History. I had a few problems with it -- it should be titled Bay Area Transgender History, with a small amount of other US Transgender History, and no non-US Transgender History, for example -- but I liked it overall. And I hadn't known how much we all owe to Silvia and Marsha.

It also made me remember the March on Washington, in 1993. I went with my college's larval GLBT group, and it opened my eyes in big ways. I saw Pussy Tourette on stage, which was (maybe strangely?) a big motivator. She's kind of a hero of mine.