Marsha P. Johnson, born on this day in 1945, was a civil rights activist, founding member of the Gay Liberation Front and the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (S.T.A.R.), and participant in the Stonewall Uprising of 1969.

Johnson was one of the first drag queens to go to the Stonewall Inn after they began allowing women and drag queens inside; it was previously a bar for only gay men.

On the early morning hours of June 28th, 1969, the Stonewall uprising occurred. While the first two nights of rioting were the most intense, the clashes with police would result in a series of spontaneous demonstrations and marches through the gay neighborhoods of Greenwich Village for roughly a week afterwards.

According to the New-York Historical Society, “While there are many conflicting stories about the uprising’s start, it is clear that Marsha was on the front lines. In one account, she started the uprising by throwing a shot glass at a mirror. In another, she climbed a lamppost and dropped a heavy purse onto a police car, shattering the windshield.” After Stonewall, Johnson became more involved in activism, helping found the Gay Liberation Front.

To help provide a home for vulnerable trans youth, Marsha and her friend Sylvia Rivera together formed the Street Transvestite Activist Revolutionaries (STAR). The first STAR House was in the back of a seemingly abandoned truck in Greenwich Village, housing nearly 24 people.

One morning, they returned to the truck just as its driver was pulling away with STAR residents sleeping inside, who were then forced to jump from a moving vehicle. Marsha and Sylvia then rented and fixed up a dilapidated building to house STAR residents for eight months before being evicted.

Shortly after a pride parade in 1992, Johnson’s body was discovered floating in the Hudson River. Police ruled the death a suicide, but Johnson’s friends and other members of the local community insisted Johnson was not suicidal and noted that the back of Johnson’s head had a massive wound.

Johnson was cremated and, following a funeral at a local church, friends released her ashes over the river.

The 2012 documentary “Pay It No Mind – The Life and Times of Marsha P. Johnson” heavily features segments from a 1992 interview with Johnson, filmed shortly before her death.

“Darling, I want my gay rights now”

  • Marsha P. Johnson

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  • Othello [comrade/them, love/loves]@hexbear.netEnglish
    13·
    1 year ago

    why doesnt china have a less convoluted healthcare system, why not be more like cuba. Im sure its a dumb question i just wish someone would explain more in depth. it just feels like something people say when they they dont have an exact answer. like obviously the material conditions are different I KNOW THAT, thats the beginning of the explanation not the end.

    • heartheartbreak [fae/faer]@hexbear.netEnglish
      11·
      1 year ago

      It’s because the government is filled w a few different ideological factions that have been sewn together to keep the Chinese project running like Frankensteins monster. There are multiple strains of liberals including neolibs in high positions of the government although there are also a few factions of socialists as well. Privatized healthcare makes the GDP go up which increases GDP related performance indexes which government workers are evaluated by so probably it’s because of the metrics of the way the government currently measures success.

      There’s also tiers of healthcare for certain cases so most everybody can get it, it’s just way more convoluted than Cuba because of the privatization.

    • UnicodeHamSic [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      7·
      1 year ago

      They are working on it. China is about a lifetime old. They are going from the century of humiliation to the century of general prosperity. They aren’t done yet. When you look at other sectors you see every few years they have fixed the talking points and the media has to find new ones to complain about. Remember ghost houses? No, we don’t. That is a problem that was fixed and now we don’t hear about the success.

      For healthcare specifically using thr dentist theory, having a sector open to the market means they can take money from the west to improve the material conditions. If they closed it off they wouldn’t be getting easy black rock money to upgrade MRI machines.