WEBVTT - SYMHC Classics: Sylvia Rivera 0:00:02.400 --> 0:00:06.760 Happy Saturday. The Stonewall Uprising started on June twenty eighth, 0:00:06.880 --> 0:00:10.360 nineteen sixty nine, or fifty six years ago today. On 0:00:10.400 --> 0:00:13.520 the day that we are publishing this episode, we talked 0:00:13.520 --> 0:00:16.960 about this Center episode on Sylvia Rivera, which first came 0:00:17.000 --> 0:00:21.160 out on October eighth, twenty fourteen. That is today's classic, 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:23.880 and since it is more than ten years old, we 0:00:24.040 --> 0:00:27.440 just really feel compelled to note that language has evolved 0:00:27.480 --> 0:00:29.960 about some of the things that are part of this episode, 0:00:30.000 --> 0:00:33.640 like how to talk about homelessness and addiction, and whether 0:00:33.720 --> 0:00:38.000 Stonewall is best described as a riot and uprising, a rebellion, 0:00:38.200 --> 0:00:41.479 or some other term. At this point, there are people 0:00:41.560 --> 0:00:45.000 who feel really passionately that Stonewall should be described as 0:00:45.000 --> 0:00:48.440 more of an uprising, and ones who feel just as 0:00:48.479 --> 0:00:53.160 strongly that Stonewall was a riot. So enjoy and also 0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:55.240 happy Pride. 0:00:57.000 --> 0:00:59.880 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production 0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:10.320 of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy B. 0:01:10.440 --> 0:01:13.720 Wilson and I'm Holly fromy SO. Today's subject, which is 0:01:13.840 --> 0:01:18.080 transgender activist Sylvia Rivera, is often compared to Rosa Parks 0:01:18.240 --> 0:01:21.480 like I would say seventy percent of the articles that 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:25.360 I read researching this episode compared her to Rosa Parks. 0:01:25.920 --> 0:01:29.679 Rosa Parks, as you probably know, became famous in part 0:01:30.000 --> 0:01:32.240 for refusing to give up her bus seat on a 0:01:32.280 --> 0:01:37.240 segregated bus, and Sylvia Rivera became famous in part for 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:41.240 purportedly throwing the first bottle at a police officer during 0:01:41.280 --> 0:01:45.760 the Stonewall Riots. But really, Rosa Parks and Sylvia Rivera 0:01:46.000 --> 0:01:49.880 almost could not be more different from each other. Rosa 0:01:49.920 --> 0:01:54.520 Parks's case was chosen specifically to try to overturn a 0:01:54.600 --> 0:01:59.800 bus segregation in Montgomery, Alabama, precisely because she seemed really polite. 0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:03.040 She was married, she was soft spoken, she went to church, 0:02:03.080 --> 0:02:05.440 and she had no criminal records, so basically there was 0:02:05.520 --> 0:02:09.119 nothing in her background that might turn white people off 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:12.080 to the idea that she deserved the same basic civil 0:02:12.160 --> 0:02:15.560 rights that they did. Sylvia Rivera, on the other hand, 0:02:15.600 --> 0:02:18.880 has a lot more in common with Claudette Colvin, who 0:02:18.960 --> 0:02:21.919 was also arrested for refusing to give up a seat 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:26.200 on a segregated bus in Montgomery. But Claudette Culvin did 0:02:26.240 --> 0:02:29.519 not become the household name that Rosa Parks did because 0:02:29.520 --> 0:02:32.799 she was an unmarried, pregnant teenager who had a reputation 0:02:32.840 --> 0:02:37.000 for being a troublemaker. Civil rights leaders deliberately didn't pursue 0:02:37.000 --> 0:02:38.920 her case because they knew it would be a hard 0:02:38.960 --> 0:02:41.880 one to win. They held out for a more so 0:02:42.000 --> 0:02:47.160 called respectable plaintiff instead, And that brings us to Sylvia Rivera. 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:51.200 In the years immediately after the Stonewall Riots, she campaigned 0:02:51.280 --> 0:02:54.440 bravely and stridently and vocally for the rights of gay 0:02:54.480 --> 0:02:58.839 and transgender people. Although the term transgender, which is used 0:02:58.880 --> 0:03:01.920 to describe people whose gender and identity doesn't match up 0:03:01.960 --> 0:03:04.200 with the sex that they were assigned when they were born, 0:03:04.800 --> 0:03:07.959 that word had not been coined yet. But Sylvia was 0:03:08.000 --> 0:03:12.600 also loud and aggressive and angry and poor, sometimes even homeless. 0:03:12.680 --> 0:03:15.120 She had a history of sex work and drug addictions. 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:18.960 Her mannerisms were really flamboyant, in your face. So when 0:03:18.960 --> 0:03:22.799 the gay rights movement started trending towards so called respectability, 0:03:23.240 --> 0:03:26.000 Sylvia got really pushed to the sidelines, along with a 0:03:26.000 --> 0:03:29.520 lot of other transgender people. She refused to be put 0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:32.359 in a box, and so she wound up being excluded 0:03:32.400 --> 0:03:34.520 from the very movement that she was fighting for, and 0:03:34.560 --> 0:03:38.640 she was for decades pretty much forgotten about So before 0:03:38.640 --> 0:03:41.160 we get started, there's a word of caution about this story. 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:44.960 Because Sylvia ran away from home when she was only eleven. 0:03:45.600 --> 0:03:47.960 Some of the events that happened to her, especially in 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:51.160 her young life, are disturbing. So parents and teachers, before 0:03:51.200 --> 0:03:54.040 you share this with young people, I recommend listening to 0:03:54.120 --> 0:03:57.800 it yourself first. And as a second note, some of 0:03:57.840 --> 0:03:59.840 the language that was used at the time that so 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:03.920 lived and that she used about herself isn't the preferred 0:04:04.000 --> 0:04:07.040 language that we use today, and we'll sort of point 0:04:07.080 --> 0:04:11.360 out those as they come up. So now that you've 0:04:11.400 --> 0:04:14.040 been worn, we will jump in as we usually do, 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:17.200 at the very beginning. Sylvia was born on July second 0:04:17.200 --> 0:04:20.479 of nineteen fifty one. Her mother was Venezuelan and her 0:04:20.560 --> 0:04:25.679 father was Puerto Rican. Sylvia's mother committed suicide by eating 0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:29.440 rat poison when Sylvia was three. She also tried to 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:33.240 kill Sylvia at that time, but Sylvia survived and went 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:38.000 on to be raised by her grandmother, Viahita. Viahita raised 0:04:38.000 --> 0:04:43.080 both Sylvia and Sylvia's half sister. Viahita was essentially functioning 0:04:43.080 --> 0:04:46.600 as a single parent. Her husband had abandoned her and 0:04:46.680 --> 0:04:49.800 Sylvia's father, who had also abandoned the family was not 0:04:50.400 --> 0:04:56.200 paying child support. Sylvia's grandmother was also very strict. Although 0:04:56.240 --> 0:04:59.000 she taught Sylvia to cook and to sew and to knit, 0:04:59.120 --> 0:05:01.479 she really did I did not like it when Sylvia 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:06.800 started wearing girls clothes. Biahita would punish Sylvia, sometimes physically, 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:10.560 for wearing makeup and for dressing in girls clothing, and, 0:05:10.600 --> 0:05:13.760 as Sylvia described in the oral history Making History the 0:05:13.800 --> 0:05:16.560 Struggle for gay and Lesbian equal Rights nineteen forty five 0:05:16.600 --> 0:05:20.119 to nineteen ninety, her grandmother would say, quote, we don't 0:05:20.120 --> 0:05:22.479 do this. You're one of the boys. I want you 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:25.760 to be a mechanic, and Sylvia would answer, no, I 0:05:25.839 --> 0:05:27.960 want to be a hairdresser, and I want to wear 0:05:27.960 --> 0:05:32.599 these clothes. From Sylvia's point of view, her grandmother also 0:05:32.600 --> 0:05:34.919 didn't like her because her skin was too dark. She 0:05:34.960 --> 0:05:37.080 had heard her grandmother say that she wanted a white 0:05:37.160 --> 0:05:40.440 granddaughter instead, and the struggle between the two of them 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:43.200 went on until, at the age of ten, Sylvia tried 0:05:43.200 --> 0:05:46.920 to commit suicide by taking her grandmother's pills. She wound 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:50.960 up instead in the hospital for two months. Sylvia also 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:54.360 faced bullying and harassment at school and in the neighborhood. 0:05:54.400 --> 0:05:57.800 As well. The other children and their neighbors didn't like 0:05:57.839 --> 0:06:01.560 her wearing girl's clothing, and they didn't like her effeminate mannerisms. 0:06:02.120 --> 0:06:06.360 Feeling lonely, isolated, and desperately at odds with everyone around her, 0:06:06.560 --> 0:06:09.600 Sylvia left home at age eleven. The straw that really 0:06:09.600 --> 0:06:12.159 broke the camel's back was seeing how others treatment of 0:06:12.200 --> 0:06:15.880 her was affecting her grandmother. Even though their relationship was 0:06:15.880 --> 0:06:19.599 often contentious and strained and even violent, Sylvia did not 0:06:19.960 --> 0:06:22.599 like seeing her grandmother suffer over the way people talked 0:06:22.600 --> 0:06:26.680 about her. After she ran away, Sylvia went to forty 0:06:26.720 --> 0:06:29.239 second Street in New York City, which was a haven 0:06:29.400 --> 0:06:32.920 for cross dressers and street walkers. She had no other 0:06:32.960 --> 0:06:35.520 means to support herself, and so she turned to sex work. 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:37.000 And I want to make it clear that there are 0:06:37.040 --> 0:06:39.160 people who choose to go into sex work, but at 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:42.279 this time, Sylvia was eleven and she had no other options. 0:06:43.440 --> 0:06:46.080 The area's drag queens pretty much adopted her, and they're 0:06:46.120 --> 0:06:49.159 the ones who gave her the name Sylvia. Sylvia was 0:06:49.279 --> 0:06:52.360 arrested frequently, and her grandmother would come and bail her 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:56.480 out a few days. Shy of Sylvia's eighteenth birthday. She 0:06:56.520 --> 0:06:59.039 went to the Stonewall Inn for the first time, and 0:06:59.080 --> 0:07:01.400 this was June twenty eth eighth of nineteen sixty nine. 0:07:02.600 --> 0:07:05.760 The Stonewall Inn was, like many of New York's bars 0:07:05.760 --> 0:07:08.400 that catered to the Gate community at the time, owned 0:07:08.400 --> 0:07:11.840 by the mafia. Homosexuality was a crime, and so was 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:14.320 cross dressing, so pretty much the only people who were 0:07:14.320 --> 0:07:17.600 willing to operate businesses that catered to this demographic were 0:07:17.640 --> 0:07:23.000 also themselves criminals. Gay bars were rated on a regular basis. 0:07:23.920 --> 0:07:26.680 Standard operating procedure was that the police would come in, 0:07:26.800 --> 0:07:29.920 they would make arrests and confiscations. They would then collect 0:07:29.960 --> 0:07:32.600 a payoff, and then they would leave and padlock the 0:07:32.600 --> 0:07:35.720 door behind them. Not long after the police had gone, 0:07:35.840 --> 0:07:38.720 members of the mafia would come by cut the padlock off. 0:07:39.200 --> 0:07:42.240 They would then restock the alcohol supply and business would 0:07:42.240 --> 0:07:45.239 start right back up. So for the people who didn't 0:07:45.280 --> 0:07:47.640 wind up getting arrested, it was more of a hassle 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:51.040 and an interruption to their evening's revelry than anything else. 0:07:52.160 --> 0:07:54.800 For people who did get arrested, it could be way 0:07:55.440 --> 0:07:57.960 way harder, not just for the fact that they were 0:07:57.960 --> 0:08:02.480 taken to jail, but often in they were then taunted 0:08:02.600 --> 0:08:06.680 and sometimes beaten and sometimes assaulted by other people who 0:08:06.680 --> 0:08:09.640 were in the jail. On June twenty eighth, when the 0:08:09.680 --> 0:08:12.160 police came in, most of the patrons went to the 0:08:12.200 --> 0:08:15.480 park across the street to wait, and they were tired 0:08:15.520 --> 0:08:17.800 of being hassled. A lot of people say that this 0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:20.800 was because it was the same week that Judy Garland died, 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:25.440 and that doesn't seem through the oral histories to actually 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:29.280 add up necessarily. But yeah, it's more a point a 0:08:29.320 --> 0:08:33.920 coincidence than a cause and effect situation. Right At some point, 0:08:33.960 --> 0:08:37.400 somebody started throwing coins at the police officers, yelling things 0:08:37.440 --> 0:08:41.040 like here's your payoff, come get some more, and then 0:08:41.880 --> 0:08:47.360 things started to escalate. People started throwing bottles and Molotov cocktails. 0:08:47.679 --> 0:08:50.160 Sylvia is widely cited as the first to do this, 0:08:50.320 --> 0:08:52.480 but near the end of her life she really worked 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:55.240 to try to dispel this idea, saying that she was 0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:58.880 in fact the second to throw a bottle. Soon, the 0:08:58.920 --> 0:09:02.839 police were pinned down inside the bar with the protesters outside, 0:09:03.280 --> 0:09:06.800 and the riot went on until reinforcements arrived and dispersed 0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:11.000 the crowd. The Stonewall riot wasn't remotely the first event 0:09:11.080 --> 0:09:13.520 in the modern gay rights movement. It wasn't even the 0:09:13.520 --> 0:09:17.360 first riot in an establishment that was frequented by LGBT people. 0:09:18.160 --> 0:09:21.840 An early earlier example was a riot at Cooper's Donuts 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:25.439 in Los Angeles in nineteen sixty five, and in that event, 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:28.840 drag queens and gay men, many of them black or Latino, 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:32.360 fought back against police, first by throwing donuts, which sounds 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:34.560 sort of funny, and then with hand to hand fighting, 0:09:34.679 --> 0:09:38.439 much less funny. In San Francisco, a picket protest among 0:09:38.520 --> 0:09:42.240 LGBT protesters turned into a riot at Compton's Cafeteria in 0:09:42.320 --> 0:09:45.640 nineteen sixty six. But Stonewall really did act as a 0:09:45.679 --> 0:09:49.400 sort of tipping point in a rallying cry. It's definitely 0:09:49.480 --> 0:09:53.080 the most famous today for sure. So there are several 0:09:53.120 --> 0:09:55.839 things about the riots and Sylvia's presents there that are 0:09:55.880 --> 0:09:59.200 caused for debate today. One is just how much of 0:09:59.200 --> 0:10:02.079 the Stonewall Ends clientele was made up of cross dressers 0:10:02.160 --> 0:10:05.360 and transgender people. Now, as we mentioned before, the term 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:08.760 transgender had not really been coined at this point in history, 0:10:09.320 --> 0:10:12.480 but when it was coined about ten years later, a 0:10:12.480 --> 0:10:15.839 lot of the people who had identified as cross stressers 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:19.840 or as transvestites at the time, then went on to 0:10:19.960 --> 0:10:23.760 identify as transgender. So we're going to keep talking about 0:10:23.800 --> 0:10:27.800 both cross dressers and transgender people both for the rest 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:29.959 of the episode, because there are two different things. Cross 0:10:30.000 --> 0:10:33.080 Dressing is about the clothes you have on and transgender 0:10:33.200 --> 0:10:36.280 is about your gender expression, so your expression of the 0:10:36.640 --> 0:10:42.000 gender that you are inwardly versus the clothes that you 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:45.960 have on your body. In Sylvia's own words, cross dressers 0:10:46.000 --> 0:10:48.360 could only get and if they knew somebody, because cross 0:10:48.440 --> 0:10:51.959 dressers were really frequently targeted by the police, so a 0:10:52.000 --> 0:10:53.800 lot of businesses felt like it was too much of 0:10:53.800 --> 0:10:57.439 a hassle to deal with them. Other people have characterized 0:10:57.520 --> 0:10:59.880 the Stonewell In as a haven for cross dressers and 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:04.480 for transgender people, and there are reputable historians on both sides. 0:11:05.280 --> 0:11:08.920 Another bone of contention is actually whether Sylvia herself was 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:12.960 even there. She says she was, and of course she's 0:11:13.080 --> 0:11:16.679 often credited with being the first bottle thrower, but historians 0:11:16.760 --> 0:11:19.960 have not been able to corroborate her presence there through 0:11:20.000 --> 0:11:24.520 eyewitness accounts. In the end, it doesn't necessarily matter how 0:11:24.520 --> 0:11:28.760 many transgender patrons the Stonewall In had or whether Sylvia 0:11:28.880 --> 0:11:31.679 was actually there that night. What does matter is that 0:11:31.720 --> 0:11:34.520 Sylvia and the rest of the cross dressing and transgender 0:11:34.559 --> 0:11:39.360 community became vocal, aggressive campaigners for the rights of gay 0:11:39.360 --> 0:11:42.680 me in, lesbians, bisexuals, and all manner of people who 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:46.360 just didn't conform to gender norms. They were, in many 0:11:46.360 --> 0:11:49.040 ways the people who were the most visibly on the 0:11:49.040 --> 0:11:52.040 forefront of the fight for equality and for civil rights. 0:11:52.640 --> 0:11:55.480 And we're going to talk more about what happened after 0:11:55.600 --> 0:11:58.600 Stonewall right after a word from our sponsor. If that 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:10.400 is cool with Tracy, it is. Sylvia Rivera had already 0:12:10.440 --> 0:12:13.840 been active in racial equality and anti war causes before 0:12:13.880 --> 0:12:18.200 the Stonewall riot, and after the riot she immediately passionately 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:21.320 turned her attention to the growing movement for gay rights. 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:24.560 Two gay rights organizations formed in New York in the 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:27.480 wake of the riot. That was the Gay Activists Alliance 0:12:27.600 --> 0:12:30.240 and the Gay Liberation Front, and Sylvia was active in 0:12:30.360 --> 0:12:34.560 both of those groups. As part of the Gay Activists Alliance, 0:12:34.679 --> 0:12:37.360 Sylvia petitioned the city of New York for an anti 0:12:37.400 --> 0:12:41.240 discrimination bill, and she was arrested while trying to get signatures. 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:44.200 When she appeared before the judge, he immediately let her go, 0:12:44.320 --> 0:12:47.200 he recognized that with all of the social turmoil that 0:12:47.280 --> 0:12:49.120 was going on in the United States at that point, 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:52.199 it would be a really unwise pr move for him 0:12:52.240 --> 0:12:55.400 to jail someone who was getting signatures for a petition. 0:12:56.080 --> 0:12:59.160 Sylvia also testified before the city Council to try to 0:12:59.160 --> 0:13:03.000 get the bill pass. However, as the bill was being negotiated, 0:13:03.400 --> 0:13:06.720 others in the gay community agreed to drop protections for 0:13:06.800 --> 0:13:09.000 cross dressers from the bill in the hope that it 0:13:09.000 --> 0:13:12.280 would be more likely to pass. Sylvia and many of 0:13:12.320 --> 0:13:15.320 the other cross dressing and transgender citizens of New York 0:13:15.440 --> 0:13:18.920 felt really deeply betrayed by this. They had been working 0:13:19.080 --> 0:13:23.360 campaigning and getting arrested and sometimes facing abuse and violence 0:13:23.400 --> 0:13:26.240 and sexual assault in jail once they had been arrested 0:13:26.600 --> 0:13:29.560 fighting for these causes, and at this point it felt 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:31.480 like they had done this for a cause that had 0:13:31.520 --> 0:13:34.480 then turned their back on them. And it didn't help 0:13:34.520 --> 0:13:39.240 that the bill minus discrimination protections for gender expression did 0:13:39.240 --> 0:13:42.120 not actually pass until fifteen years later, so that would 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:45.440 have been nineteen eighty six, so this concession really in 0:13:45.480 --> 0:13:48.920 the end, was not much of a help. Along the way, 0:13:49.080 --> 0:13:52.959 the Gay Activist's Alliance specifically dropped rights for the cross 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:58.760 dressing communities from its mission entirely. Consequently, after being excluded 0:13:58.800 --> 0:14:02.240 from other gay rights organisms, Sylvia and her longtime friend 0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:07.080 Marcia P. Johnson co founded the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:11.200 or STAR in the fall of nineteen seventy. Essentially, the 0:14:11.200 --> 0:14:14.360 cross dressing and transgender community had begun to feel excluded 0:14:14.400 --> 0:14:17.240 by other gay and lesbian rights organizations, and so they 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:20.560 formed their own. As a side note to a lot 0:14:20.640 --> 0:14:25.680 of people today, the word transvestite has connotations that are offensive, 0:14:25.800 --> 0:14:28.520 so people a lot of people prefer the word cross dresser, 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:30.320 but at the time it was a word that they 0:14:30.360 --> 0:14:34.480 were using to talk about themselves frequently. Yeah, you also 0:14:34.560 --> 0:14:37.280 hear drag, which is in there and they O, right, 0:14:37.320 --> 0:14:40.240 get a little fuzzy. And there's still ongoing debate over 0:14:40.400 --> 0:14:42.920 you know, terminology and who should use what to some 0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:47.520 degree that's still being worked out. Yes, so, uh, we're 0:14:47.560 --> 0:14:49.560 not at all using those terms to be disrespectful, but 0:14:49.680 --> 0:14:52.200 because that's those are the words that Sylvia and Marcia 0:14:52.320 --> 0:14:56.240 were using to describe themselves. So Sylvia and Marcia's next 0:14:56.280 --> 0:14:59.120 step was to start what was known as STAR House, 0:14:59.240 --> 0:15:01.240 and this was an hour outreach effort for the so 0:15:01.400 --> 0:15:04.920 called street queens. These were young, homeless gay youth, many 0:15:05.000 --> 0:15:08.440 of whom later went on to identify as transgender, and 0:15:08.640 --> 0:15:12.200 many of whom were also people of color. And they 0:15:12.240 --> 0:15:15.440 originally operated Starhouse out of the back of a truck, 0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:18.960 and then they started renting a building at two thirteen 0:15:19.040 --> 0:15:21.960 East Second Street and they fixed that up and there 0:15:22.000 --> 0:15:26.040 they provided shelter, food, and guidance for homeless transgender youth 0:15:26.520 --> 0:15:29.960 and Sylvia and Marcia really became mother figures for these kids. 0:15:30.440 --> 0:15:32.280 They had a dance to try to raise some money 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:35.440 to fund their operation, but for the most part, Sylvia 0:15:35.480 --> 0:15:38.320 and Marcia kept the place running by doing sex work. 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:40.880 They tried to protect all of the young people who 0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:42.960 were in their care from being involved in the sex 0:15:43.040 --> 0:15:46.160 trade at all. However, many of the youth wound up 0:15:46.240 --> 0:15:52.640 helping Starhouse's efforts by stealing food, and eventually, you know, 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:55.960 this is not really a workable business model. So Starhouse 0:15:56.240 --> 0:15:58.800 was evicted from the property for non payment of rent. 0:15:59.360 --> 0:16:01.800 And before they left, they took the refrigerator and they 0:16:01.960 --> 0:16:04.120 destroyed all of the improvements that they'd made in the 0:16:04.160 --> 0:16:06.800 building out of a sort of turn about as fair 0:16:06.800 --> 0:16:10.640 play mindset, and I feel like, we should point out 0:16:10.680 --> 0:16:13.040 that the reason that they were having to turn to 0:16:13.120 --> 0:16:15.720 stealing and sex work to fund their operations is because 0:16:15.760 --> 0:16:19.320 their entire lives at this point were not only illegal, 0:16:19.360 --> 0:16:22.400 but also specifically targeted by the police and other people 0:16:22.400 --> 0:16:25.720 for harassment. So that was sort of what it had 0:16:25.760 --> 0:16:28.800 come to by being excluded from so many other social 0:16:28.920 --> 0:16:31.880 organizations that were working to help homeless people and others 0:16:31.920 --> 0:16:35.000 in New York. Yeah, it certainly was not like a, oh, 0:16:35.040 --> 0:16:39.160 we don't want to pursue legitimate means of gaining money. 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:42.520 They just did not have opportunities to do so, right, 0:16:42.640 --> 0:16:44.720 and that continues to be a problem in a lot 0:16:44.720 --> 0:16:48.920 of areas today. Throughout this time, Sylvia was also active 0:16:48.920 --> 0:16:52.320 in other radical organizations as well, including the Black Panther 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:54.920 Party and the Young Lords, which is a Puerto Rican 0:16:55.080 --> 0:17:00.200 nationalist activism group. In nineteen seventy three, Sylvia I was 0:17:00.240 --> 0:17:03.240 supposed to speak at Christopher Street Liberation Day, which was 0:17:03.240 --> 0:17:08.000 a festival to commemorate the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. However, 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:11.240 radical feminists tried to keep Sylvia from the stage because 0:17:11.280 --> 0:17:15.600 they viewed her wearing women's clothing as sexist. In particular, 0:17:15.920 --> 0:17:19.760 activist Gino Leary, a former nun and lesbian feminist, spoke 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:24.480 out against Sylvia taking part. Sylvia's response was to physically 0:17:24.480 --> 0:17:27.760 grab the microphone and to talk anyway with a lot 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:32.399 of vigor and profanity behind her words. She spoke very 0:17:32.440 --> 0:17:36.000 candidly and angrily about how the gay community was benefiting 0:17:36.080 --> 0:17:39.760 from the cross dresser's work, while simultaneously excluding them from 0:17:39.800 --> 0:17:43.320 their successes as her payment. I do want to note 0:17:43.320 --> 0:17:46.679 that Gino Leary went on to soften her views about 0:17:46.920 --> 0:17:49.520 cross dressers and transgender people later in her life. I 0:17:49.520 --> 0:17:53.240 don't want to paint her as a terrible person who 0:17:53.280 --> 0:17:57.280 went around depressing other people. She did later on express 0:17:57.320 --> 0:18:02.600 embarrassment and shame that she had really basically kicked people 0:18:02.600 --> 0:18:05.879 who were already down. Yeah, and the drag queens that 0:18:05.920 --> 0:18:08.399 were supposed to perform at this rally were also barred 0:18:08.440 --> 0:18:13.159 from performing. After this incident, Sylvia moved to Terrytown, New 0:18:13.240 --> 0:18:16.000 York and lived with a boyfriend. Since she was no 0:18:16.119 --> 0:18:18.719 longer in the city, she became less prominent in its 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:21.400 civil rights and gay rights efforts, but she did make 0:18:21.440 --> 0:18:24.040 her way back every year for the parades and festivals 0:18:24.040 --> 0:18:28.080 that commemorated the end of the Stonewall riot. In the interim, 0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:31.720 she led a relatively quiet life. She mostly worked food 0:18:31.720 --> 0:18:35.800 service jobs for a while, but eventually, unfortunately, she began 0:18:35.880 --> 0:18:41.160 abusing drugs again and wound up homeless, and journalists who 0:18:41.160 --> 0:18:44.920 were working to chronicle the gay rights movements earlier years 0:18:45.119 --> 0:18:49.000 and transgender people's contribution to the gay rights movement found 0:18:49.000 --> 0:18:50.679 her living on the streets in New York in the 0:18:50.720 --> 0:18:54.760 early nineteen nineties. This actually marked her return to activism 0:18:54.800 --> 0:18:57.080 and to the public eye, which we'll talk about after 0:18:57.200 --> 0:19:08.800 another brief ad break. It's tricky to talk about some 0:19:08.840 --> 0:19:11.119 of the issues that are in today's episode because the 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:15.120 terminology that we used to talk about it today, some 0:19:15.160 --> 0:19:18.640 of it was coined basically halfway through Sylvia Rivera's life. 0:19:19.040 --> 0:19:23.560 It's also tricky to talk about Sylvia Rivera's identity specifically, 0:19:24.800 --> 0:19:27.919 because she really really resisted the idea of labels for 0:19:28.000 --> 0:19:29.840 a lot of her life. She referred to herself as 0:19:29.840 --> 0:19:32.280 a transvestite, and as we said earlier, that's a word 0:19:32.280 --> 0:19:34.880 that a lot of people don't prefer to be used anymore. 0:19:35.560 --> 0:19:39.000 The term transgender came around about halfway through her life, 0:19:39.040 --> 0:19:42.760 but she wasn't totally comfortable calling herself that. Towards the 0:19:42.840 --> 0:19:45.000 end of her life, she said quote, I'm tired of 0:19:45.040 --> 0:19:48.000 being labeled. I don't even like the label transgender. I 0:19:48.119 --> 0:19:50.679 just want to be who I am. I'm living the 0:19:50.680 --> 0:19:53.840 way Sylvia wants to live. But despite her lack of 0:19:53.840 --> 0:19:58.080 affinity for labels, Sylvia was undoubtedly an advocate for rights 0:19:58.119 --> 0:20:01.800 and protections for transgender people throughout the last ten years 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:05.240 or so of her life. We talked earlier about Sylvia 0:20:05.520 --> 0:20:09.879 founding the organization Star with Marcia P. Johnson. Marsha's body 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:12.720 was actually found in the Hudson River in nineteen ninety two. 0:20:13.480 --> 0:20:16.560 Police originally said that it was a suicide, but they 0:20:16.600 --> 0:20:20.320 eventually opened a homicide investigation. And when I say eventually, 0:20:20.359 --> 0:20:23.200 I mean two decades later. At the time of her death, 0:20:23.520 --> 0:20:25.960 Sylvia and other friends of Marcia's had said that she 0:20:26.119 --> 0:20:29.040 was not suicidal and that they had witnessed her being 0:20:29.080 --> 0:20:32.359 harassed by someone near where her body was found. Shortly 0:20:32.400 --> 0:20:36.520 before her death. In nineteen ninety four, Sylvia was asked 0:20:36.520 --> 0:20:40.520 to lead the twenty fifth anniversary Stonewall March. That same year, 0:20:40.600 --> 0:20:44.680 she advocated for Martin Duberman's publishers to translate his LGBT 0:20:44.720 --> 0:20:49.399 history book Stonewall into Spanish, but according to her, she 0:20:49.480 --> 0:20:51.640 was told it would not sell well in quote third 0:20:51.680 --> 0:20:56.560 world countries in Latin countries. In her last years, she 0:20:56.640 --> 0:20:59.520 and her partner Julia Murray lived and work at a 0:20:59.520 --> 0:21:02.840 place called Transy House. This is a collective and shelter 0:21:02.960 --> 0:21:06.040 for transgender youth, and they joined this collective in nineteen 0:21:06.119 --> 0:21:10.040 ninety seven. In nineteen ninety eight, Sylvia was arrested during 0:21:10.080 --> 0:21:12.800 a memorial for Matthew Shepherd in New York. So if 0:21:12.840 --> 0:21:16.159 you are not familiar with his story, Matthew Shepherd was 0:21:16.200 --> 0:21:19.120 a student at the University of Wyoming at Laramie who 0:21:19.200 --> 0:21:22.199 was tortured, tied to a fence post, and left to 0:21:22.280 --> 0:21:25.000 die as part of an anti gay hate crime. He 0:21:25.040 --> 0:21:27.080 wound up dying of his injuries a few days after 0:21:27.119 --> 0:21:30.080 he was found tied to the fence post. According to 0:21:30.160 --> 0:21:33.600 Sylvia's own account, a police officer basically spread the word 0:21:33.680 --> 0:21:36.720 to arrest her first because she was known for being 0:21:36.960 --> 0:21:41.760 very vocal at these kinds of demonstrations. In nineteen ninety nine, 0:21:41.880 --> 0:21:45.239 Sylvia spoke at the World Pride Rally in Rome. In 0:21:45.320 --> 0:21:49.280 two thousand, another trans woman named Amanda Milan was stabbed 0:21:49.280 --> 0:21:52.800 in the neck and killed on forty second Street. Sylvia 0:21:53.000 --> 0:21:57.000 organized a series of rallies and protests surrounding her death. 0:21:57.000 --> 0:22:00.240 In the trial of her killers, Sylvia continued to be 0:22:00.560 --> 0:22:03.480 really vocal about the schism between the gay community and 0:22:03.520 --> 0:22:06.320 the trans community in the years before her death, and 0:22:06.359 --> 0:22:09.359 about a year before she died, at a talk given 0:22:09.400 --> 0:22:12.280 before the Latino Gay Men of New York, she said, yes, 0:22:12.359 --> 0:22:14.960 we can adopt children. All well and good, that's fine. 0:22:15.000 --> 0:22:17.199 I would love to have children. I would love to 0:22:17.240 --> 0:22:20.200 marry my lover over there, she pointed to Julia Murray. 0:22:20.760 --> 0:22:23.200 But for political reasons, I will not do it, because 0:22:23.240 --> 0:22:25.000 I don't feel that I have to fit in that 0:22:25.080 --> 0:22:28.720 closet of normal straight society which the gay mainstream is 0:22:28.800 --> 0:22:32.639 going towards. In the same speech, she described the trans 0:22:32.680 --> 0:22:36.840 community's participation in the gay rights movement this way quote. 0:22:36.880 --> 0:22:39.920 We were determined that evening, that evening, being the night 0:22:39.920 --> 0:22:42.240 of the Stonewall riots, that we were going to be 0:22:42.359 --> 0:22:46.320 a liberated, free community, which we did acquire that. Actually, 0:22:46.400 --> 0:22:49.880 I'll change the WII. You have acquired your liberation, your 0:22:49.880 --> 0:22:54.520 freedom from that night. Myself, I've got Explative deleted, just 0:22:54.560 --> 0:22:57.080 like I had back then, but I still struggle, and 0:22:57.119 --> 0:22:59.600 I still continue the struggle. I will struggle till the 0:22:59.680 --> 0:23:02.080 day I die. And my main struggle right now is 0:23:02.080 --> 0:23:05.280 that my community will seek the rights that are justly hours. 0:23:06.480 --> 0:23:09.240 In the last year of her life, Sylvia campaigned for 0:23:09.280 --> 0:23:13.040 New York Sexual Orientation Non Discrimination Act, which is also 0:23:13.080 --> 0:23:16.679 referred to as SONDA, and that act prohibits discrimination on 0:23:16.760 --> 0:23:21.480 the basis of actual or perceived sexual orientation in employment, housing, 0:23:21.760 --> 0:23:26.320 public accommodations, education, credit, and the exercise of civil rights. 0:23:26.880 --> 0:23:31.960