Influential LGBT+ people from history: Sylvia Rivera
“I’m not missing a moment of this – it’s the revolution!” – Sylvia Rivera at the Stonewall Riots.
A tireless trans activist and civil rights advocate, Sylvia Rivera was an integral part of the gay liberation movement of the 1960s and 70s. Along with her friend Marsha P. Johnson, Rivera was one of the first to lead the charge in the Stonewall Riots of 1969.
Coming from a troubled family, Rivera was forced to become a sex worker on the streets of New York at the age of ten. Navigating an extremely dangerous world of sex and drugs reportedly hardened her resolve. "Try to imagine being an eleven-year-old kid and being kicked out onto the streets of New York,” said author and activist Riki Wilchins. “It must have been brutal. Growing up like this made Sylvia both hard as nails and extremely vulnerable.”
In a time before the concept of “transgender” enter the lexicon, Rivera was defending the rights of drag queens, transsexuals, transvestites, or anyone else who didn’t conform to gender.
“I think Sylvia’s role in gay history was that she was one of the first people to highlight that our movement needed to be more inclusive of people who did not fit in the mainstream,” said Carrie Davis, Chief Programs and Policy Officer at New York City’s LGBT Community Centre.
With Marsha P. Johnson, she opened the shelter for homeless transgender youth STAR (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries) and was dubbed the Rosa Parks of the trans movement.
Her part in the gay liberation movement was not always accepted, many gay people refused to acknowledge the struggles of trans people as part of their own cause. Taking to the stage at a gay rally in Washington Square Park in 1973 she was booed vehemently while making an impassioned speech: “I have been beaten, I have had my nose broken, I have been thrown in jail! I lost my job, I lost my apartment for gay liberation… and you all treat me this way?”
“Sylvia was a very difficult person. She had a lot of anger, for many understandable reasons,” said Rich Wandel, a historian and archivist at New York City’s LGBT Community Center. “Back in 1970, 1971, there was some appreciation for drag queens, but not for what we know as transgender people today. The gay community was not willing to embrace her, and neither was the women’s liberation movement.”
However, since passing away in 2002 of liver cancer, Rivera has been honoured as an integral part of the LGBT+ movement. A street in New York now bears her name, while the Sylvia Rivera Law Project helps fight for the rights of trans people and those who don’t conform to gender.
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