Marsha’s Legacy

Have you ever been afraid to be yourself? Does the thought of living your life the way you want to live make you uncomfortable even if you know you will be happier than before? Has your existence been illegal in many countries until recently? Is your existence still illegal in some places, or on the verge of becoming illegal again? Welcome to what it feels like to be LGBT in today’s society. Has society always been like this? No. In fact, thousands of years ago, homosexuality was woven into the society of many great civilizations. The Greeks and Romans to the Mesopotamians and Ancient Egyptians all had homosexuality as a part of normal life. The advent of Christianity at the end of the Roman Empire saw homosexuality dwindle away and vanish as witch hunts carried out by the church also targeted homosexuals. Ever since then, homosexuality has been criminalized, or if a historically important person was gay, it was dismissed as “close friends” as the case with Da Vinci and Galileo. Even in the past one hundred years, homosexuality was outlawed by the most forward, progressive countries. Alan Turing, a British scientist who helped crack the German Enigma code was charged and faced punishment from his country that did not recognize him as a hero even though he was key to winning the war. This treatment that criminalized LGBT people kept people in hiding, beaten and ashamed, unable to express themselves the way they truly want to. Then in 1969, a New Yorker and openly queer woman named Marsha P. Johnson said no more and stood up for her brothers and sisters after participating in the Stonewall Riots. Through her refusal to be quiet, organizing foundations, and her resistance of the police and government, Marsha P. Johnson showed courage to call out wrongs, to fight to make a difference, and drive humanity forward.

The Stonewall Riots started the LGBT activist movement and Marsha was witness to the events that happened. The riots started out as a routine police raid of the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in the Greenwich Village of New York City. “The gay patrons would complain but not resist, there would not be any serious problem. For the police, it was just another hot and humid June night with the closing of a gay bar. This time, however, the gay patrons did fight back. For three nights there were riots at the bar” (Nusbaumer). These riots sparked the LGBT movement. The LGBT community said no that day in 1969. No! I refuse to be treated as a lesser human being. My existence as someone not straight and cisgender is not legal and I demand change! Change in my neighborhood, change in my city, my state, my country, the world! ‘“It’s very American to say, this is not right,” says Stonewall rioter Virginia Appuzo. “It’s very American to say, you promised equality, you promised freedom. And in a sense the Stonewall riots said deliver on the promise”’ (Nusbaumer). These riots created an opening for activism to begin. There was not a loud voice, joined by others, crying for change before the riots. It was quiet, the struggles of the LGBT community were silent. No more were the LGBT population silent about their oppression. Marsha Johnson, an African American transwoman who experienced the riots, became a vanguard for the Gay Rights movement.

Marsha bore witness to the riots, coming to the bar after the riots had begun. She was not involved in the violence of the riots or actively blocked the police. Marsha explains her involvement in the riots in an interview. “We just were saying, no more police brutality and, oh, we had enough of police harassment in the Village and other places. Oh, there was a lot of little chants we used to do in those days” (Marcus). This involvement shows the vocal attitude of Johnson, chanting being used to fight police, bring issues to attention. Sparking a slow but progressive debate on the issues of civil rights in our country. These tactics are still used in modern marches and parades; chants and outcries to bring attention to issues. Secondary accounts claim that Marsha was at the bar before the riots had started and had helped begin the three-night unrest. It began when an officer clubbed a lesbian when she complained that her cuffs were too tight. “Marsha P. Johnson was among the first of the patrons to resist the police that night . . . among the first in the crowd of onlookers to take action by throwing a bottle at her police oppressors. The riots they helped catalyze spread to surrounding neighborhoods until all of New York was in an uproar . . . Their bravery, along with the others at the bar that night, led to the gay liberation movement: one year after the riots the first gay pride parades were held, and two years after there were gay rights groups in every major American city” (Schlaffer). These riots became a milestone for the gay community’s progress in the world, marked by a monthlong celebration as Pride occurs during June, the month of the riots. Celebrating the history and to see how far society has come in half a century. Celebrating Marsha, a leader of the movement no matter if she had instigated the violence or peacefully protested instead. Marsha was sick of the way her community was treated and stood up for her brothers and sisters. Sick of being treated as a subhuman.

Marsha Johnson was used to the police and spent her life harassed because she was transgender and African American. Promiscuity and prostitution, known as hustling were not taboo for Johnson and more of a way to stay off the streets for the night, but it did get her in trouble sometimes. When asked if she was afraid of getting arrested, she replied with “Oh, no, because I’d been going to jail for like ten years before the Stonewall I was going to jail ‘cause I was, I was originally up on 42nd Street. And every time we’d go, you know, like going out to hustle all the time they would just get us and tell us we were under arrest” (Marcus). Being an openly transgender woman, and a woman of color, Marsha had run-ins with the police more than a few times. Even today, people of color fear the police, still struggling with racism and prejudice. Video footage can be found of people calling the police on black people for living their lives, not a threat to anyone, simply buying something at the store, or exercising at a park. Even more arrests are made, not on camera for a colored person mowing the lawn or renting a room for a vacation. I recently watched a video of a Puerto Rican woman is being harassed by a white man for having a fourth of July barbeque at a park. A cop arrives at the scene and does nothing but watch the man yell at the woman. The woman repeatedly asks the officer to help, yelling stay back as the man keeps trying to approach her. The woman receives no aide and it becomes frightfully clear that people of color, especially women of color are disrespected and cannot count on the people around them for help. This is echoed by the uprising after the murder of George Floyd and the riots that followed soon after. Marsha gives courage to those people. Marsha has taught the marginalized, scared people to fight back against the forces that oppose their existence and spark movements for change. The first step to allow change to happen is to create a space where people can speak freely about who they are, their experiences, beliefs, and the change they want to create and set forth in society.

Marsha created a safe place for these people, who in turn changed the world. She and fellow transwoman Sylvia Rivera, who was with Johnson during the Stonewall Riots, co-founded STAR (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries) in 1970. A lot of the transgender people lived out on the streets as people didn’t want to house them, or even take their money because of the blatant homophobia of the time, STAR aimed to provide a place of shelter for these homeless people. “The first STAR home was a parked trailer truck in an outdoor parking lot in Greenwich Village. Some two dozen STAR youth lived together in the trailer. One day, at dawn, Rivera and Johnson arrived at the trailer with food for all and discovered to their horror that their “home” was moving” (Feinberg). This truck provided shelter for over twenty homeless transgender youth in the streets of New York. Even a bit of insulation and protection from the elements is the difference between life and death, especially in the cold winters of New York. Johnson and Rivera worked hard to create progress in American society. They went to parades, riots, and conventions, promoting their organization. Rivera, in an interview, stated ‘“I met [Black Panther Party leader] Huey Newton at the Peoples’ Revolutionary Convention in Philadelphia in 1971. Huey decided we were part of the revolution—that we were revolutionary people”’ (Feinberg). The Black Panther Party deciding that Marsha and Sylvia were revolutionaries is no small thing, as the Black Panthers were some of the most revolutionary groups in the Civil Rights Movement in America. STAR was known throughout the United States, providing aide to homeless LGBT youth in New York City, Chicago, California, and even England. The group was around in the early seventies before it disbanded, getting absorbed by the Gay Liberation Front. The group provided most of the same things as STAR did but offered their services to all orientations and gender identities. Johnson worked hard for the LGBT community, creating a more equal world until her death.

Marsha Johnson died at the age of forty-six in 1992. Marsha’s death was investigated, but not well. “Her body was found floating in the Hudson River in July 1992 and her death was originally ruled a suicide by the New York Police Department. But Johnson is described by those who knew her as vivacious and upbeat and they rebut the notion that she would have taken her own life” (Simon). Marsha Johnson was oppressed even after death, the police claiming she had committed suicide. The investigation was fast and overlooked many details that could have led up to her untimely demise. Johnson’s work was carried on by Rivera who continued to work hard for the community. Rivera died of liver cancer roughly a decade after Johnson’s death. And a decade later, in 2012, Johnson’s cold case was opened by documentary makers and authorities, seeking to find the real answers about the death of the prominent leader of the civil rights and gay rights movements. Recently a documentary about Marsha Johnson was released on Netflix in a search for answers. Johnson’s work was far from finished, she had gained traction, she had work to continue, she was not going to give up. ‘“As long as gay people don’t have their rights all across America,” she once said, “there’s no reason for celebration”’ (Chan). Marsha would not give up until the marginalized people of America were seen as equal to a straight white man. Marsha’s work was far from over when she died. Her work is still far from over, but her legacy lives on.

Marsha P. Johnson’s legacy has created much change in America and the world, as her influence and her ideas are spread and learned. Over twenty years after her death, same-sex marriage was legalized by the supreme court and all fifty states as a result. The LGBT community has become more prevalent and active in the world, as everywhere countries are beginning to decriminalize and legalize the union of same-sex people. Generations of people are coming out of the closet and living their lives to the fullest potential, finally free to be themselves without consequence. There are still places where being LGBT is not accepted, even in the United States. A few years ago, a small town had a transgender elementary school student. The parents of the students at the school wanted to hunt the student down and lynch her. They posted this publicly on Facebook and the backlash from the LGBT community was almost instantaneous. It is hard to change a group of people’s minds but the community made it hard for these people to carry out what they wanted through viral awareness of the situation. This is not a one-off event unfortunately and happens often all over the world. I have seen Marsha’s legacy in practice in my high school with my friend. He used the stall of the boy’s locker room to change out into his PE clothes for most of a semester. About halfway through the semester, a student told his mother about the situation. The news coverage was almost instant and the school board met to quickly resolve the issue. A compromise was made and a teacher restroom was converted into an all-gender restroom, holding an occupancy of one person at a time. All-gender restrooms have been implemented across the country and they work well, especially if the only restrooms provided are all-gender. If there is no system in place at a location, a trans person has to pick the bathroom that they feel most comfortable in. In most cases, it is the bathroom that corresponds to the binary gender that they were born as. Johnson also identified outside of the gender binary, a revolutionary idea even today, as society pressures people to be boy or girl. Pick, you cannot be both or none. You have to be one or the other. Scientific research keeps proving that a gender binary and heterosexuality are all human concepts and that keeping them does not make sense and is regressive to society. Marsha P. Johnson would agree. When asked what her sexuality or gender was, she replied with the same answer she gave when asked what the P in her name meant. “Pay it no mind” (Schlaffer). Johnson’s coy answer is very modern even today. She is saying that it does not matter what I am. What I am is a human being and that is all that matters. I am a human being and that should not affect how you judge me. I should be judged on my actions as a person, not the color of my skin, my gender expression, or sexual identity. I will fight and create change until that is how all people are judged and perceived. Marsha Johnson’s legacy lives on and will continue to live on, protecting and encouraging people to rise.

Marsha P. Johnson is an American icon because she fought for what she believed in, challenging the society of her time and creating progress to make the world a better place. Johnson would be appalled to see what is happening in our government if she were still alive. The Trump administration put forth a plan that would remove transgender people from the protected class of people and define them out of existence. Trump and his administration want to define gender with the set of genitalia a person was born with, unable to change it unless a DNA test can prove otherwise. Most of the time this will read Male or Female unless the person has two or more X chromosomes and one Y chromosome. This government policy completely erases the freedoms of the transgender population. Outrage has gone through the community and people are prepared to protest this measure. We are fighting for Marsha’s legacy. We are determined to succeed, the left will fight, empowered by our thinkers, our progressives. We will fight, sick of being marginalized, afraid of what our government wants to take away, given courage by our numbers and leaders. Marsha’s fight is far from over. There will be a day when all people are seen as equal. But until that day, we talk, we read, we write, we walk. We are determined to make a difference in the world. And once that day comes, we will be ready to embrace our brothers and sisters for who they are – human beings with histories and legacies, free to live without fear, and be who they truly are. When the world recognizes all people as equal, will you be remembered for aiding or fighting against people that have been oppressed for centuries?

Works Cited

Chan, Sewell. “Marsha P. Johnson, a Transgender Pioneer and Activist.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 8 Mar. 2018, www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/obituaries/overlooked-marsha-p-johnson.html.

Feinberg, Leslie. “Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries.” Jackie Robinson's Historic Impact, Workers World, 24 Sept. 2006, www.workers.org/2006/us/lavender-red-73/.

Marcus, Eric. “Marsha P. Johnson & Randy Wicker.” Making Gay History, Making Gay History, 25 May 2018, makinggayhistory.com/podcast/episode-11-johnson-wicker/.

Nusbaumer, Stewart. “Film Review: Stonewall Uprising.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 7 Dec. 2017, www.huffingtonpost.com/stewart-nusbaumer/film-review-emstonewall-u_b_674401.html.

Schlaffer, Natasha. “The Unsung Heroines of Stonewall: Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera.” SiOWfa15 Science in Our World Certainty and Controversy, Penn State University, 23 Oct. 2016, sites.psu.edu/womeninhistory/2016/10/23/the-unsung-heroines-of-stonewall-marsha-p-johnson-and-sylvia-rivera/.

Simon, Carolin. “The Cold Case of an LGBTQ Pioneer.” Human Rights Campaign, 29 Sept. 2017, www.hrc.org/blog/the-cold-case-of-an-lgbtq-pioneer-marsha-p-johnson.