"Darling, I want my gay rights now!" Marsha P. Johnson

Marsha P. Johnson (1945-1992), born Malcom Michaels Jr., moved from New Jersey to New York City aged seventeen. There, she adopted the name Marsha P. Johnson, "P." standing for "Pay It No Mind" - her life motto and reply to questions regarding her gender. 

Marsha called herself a gay person, a transvestite, and a drag queen. At the time, the term transgender was not commonly used.  She was near the Stonewall Inn on 28th of June 1969, the night the police raided the bar and the patrons fought back. Apparently, Marsha was on the front lines, the stories about her role vary and range from her starting the uprising to her climbing a lamppost and dropping a purse onto a police car damaging its windshield. Marsha attended rallies, sit-ins and meetings of the Gay Liberation Front whose work she appreciated. At the same time, however, she expressed frustration about how transgender were invisible and how white gay men and lesbians dominated the conversation.

How many years has it taken people to realize that we are all brothers and sisters and human beings in the human race? I mean how many years does it take people to see that? We’re all in this rat race together!

Marsha P. Johnson

In 1970, her fiend Sylvia Rivera had the idea to create a place where transpeople could live and feel safe. Together they founded the Street Transvestite Activist Revolutionaries (STAR) offering a home and breakfast to those in need. Marsha became "Saint Marsha".

I’d like to see the gay revolution get started… If a transvestite doesn’t say I’m gay and I’m proud and I’m a transvestite, then nobody else is going to hop up there and say I’m gay and I’m proud — and I’m a transvestite for them.

Marsha P. Johnson

Marsha P. Johnson worked as a sex worker, waiting tables, and performing in drag shows., spent most of her life without a permanent home. Danger and poverty accompanied her life, she contracted AIDS in 1990, and was arrested more than 100 times. In 1992, her body was found in the Hudson River. The police ruled her death a suicide, her friends disagreed and called it a hate crime. In 2012, the NYC Police Department agreed to open the case again; the case is still unsolved (via).

 

“As long as gay people don’t have their rights all across America, there’s no reason for celebration.”

Marsha P Johnson

“I was no one, nobody, from Nowheresville, until I became a drag queen.”

Marsha P. Johnson

“We have to be visible. We should not be ashamed of who we are.”

Marsha P. Johnson

‍“Darling, I want my gay rights now!”

Marsha P. Johnson

“I don’t know what I am if I’m not a woman.”

Marsha P. Johnson

“I’d been going to jail for like 10 years before the Stonewall.”

Marsha P. Johnson

“There are a lot of gay transvestites who have been in jail for no reason at all.”

Marsha P. Johnson

“I started out with makeup in 1963 and 1964. In 1965, I was coming out more, and I was still wearing makeup but I was still going to jail just for wearing makeup.”

Marsha P. Johnson

“Gay sisters don’t think too bad of transvestites. Gay brothers do.”

Marsha P. Johnson

“Now they got two little nice statues in Chariot Park to remember the gay movement. How many people have died for these two little statues to be put in the park for them to recognize gay people?”

Marsha P. Johnson

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photographs (first one by Johnny Romanek) via and via