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leafistakingovertheworld · 3 years

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In this house we stan Marsha P Johnson and Stormé DeLarverie equally <3

Marsha P. Johnson did not instigate the Stonewall rioting, and we need to admit that.

Some thoughts about erasure, misinformation, and history this Pride Month.

This audio is taken from the podcast Making Gay History, specifically the episode titled "Marsha P. Johnson & Randy Wicker". The audio contains an interview with Marsha P. Johnson and Randy Wicker, a white gay man who discusses viewing the Stonewall uprising as an issue for his campaign to prove that homosexuals were "just like everyone else" and would cause the general public no problems.

Despite becoming close with Johnson later in life, he viewed drag queens as a "public relations nightmare". He also mentions viewing Johnson as someone who would potentially rob him, if he allowed her to sleep on his floor when she was homeless. He describes Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) as "flakey, fucked up transvestites living in a hovel and a slum somewhere, calling themselves revolutionaries". It's important to consider his background, biases, and ethnicity as we reflect on his telling of history alongside Marsha P. Johnson.

This is a transcript of the audio excerpt.

[TRANSCRIPT: RANDY: Marsha’s the only one, she’s the only one everyone agrees was at the Stonewall riots. There were a lot of other people, but everyone agrees that Marsha was there, so… MARSHA: The way I winded up being at Stonewall that night, I was having a party uptown. And we were all out there and Miss Sylvia Rivera and them were over in the park having a cocktail. I was uptown and I didn’t get downtown until about two o’clock, because when I got downtown the place was already on fire. And it was a raid already. The riots had already started. And they said the police went in there and set the place on fire. They said the police set it on fire because they originally wanted the Stonewall to close, so they had several raids. And there was this, uh, Tiffany and, oh, this other drag queen that used to work there in the coat check room and then they had all these bartenders. And the night before the Stonewall riots started, before they closed the bar, we were all there and we all had to line up against the wall and they was all searching us. INTERVIEWER: The police were? MARSHA: Yeah, they searched every single body that came there. Because, uh, END TRANSCRIPT. Source.]

I would like to draw your attention to two points. First, Randy is spreading misinformation when he says that Marsha P. Johnson is "the only one" that everyone agrees was at the Stonewall uprising. He is erasing Stormé DeLarverie, a gender non-conforming butch lesbian of mixed heritage, who was reported by many people to have been one of the masculine lesbians who instigated the uprising- if not the masculine lesbian identified by Harry Beard, a Stonewall employee present during the uprising that night, while Marsha P. Johnson was still absent from the venue.

This should surprise nobody, when we take into consideration Randy's predisposition to disregard (or show racist attitudes towards) LGBT+ people of colour.

[ID: A clipping from a 1989 interview with an ex-Stonewall employee who attempts to correct the retelling of history he has witnessed. Please note that some words have been censored with asterisks, to comply with Tumblr's blacklisting censorship. TRANSCRIPT: The Stonewall Riot of June 1969, considered the birth of the gay rights movement, was prompted by the arrest of a woman dressed in men's clothing. "It has never been covered correctly," said Harry Beard, a former Stonewall bar employee and organiser of the Stonewall veterans contingent in this year's San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade. When five plainclothes and two uniformed vice squad officers came in to make the usual raid on the gay bar, checking everyone's identification, including their draft cards, Beard said, they found a lone woman dressed in a man's black leather suit. In New York State there is a law requiring that one be wearing at least three pieces of clothing appropriate to his or her biological gender. The officers handcuffed the cr*ssdressed woman and ordered her outside. When yanked by the arm, she turned to the policeman and said, "Don't be so rough!" He responded by hitting her with his billy club. "Hey, you can't do that!" Beard protested, and thus began the Stonewall Riot. END TRANSCRIPT. END ID. Source.]

Which brings me to my second point.

Marsha P. Johnson did not, by her own admission, instigate the Stonewall uprising.

She was deeply embedded in the resistance against police brutality, homophobia, and transphobia, but she did not spark the rioting herself that night. We should not be afraid of this truth. We can still praise, admire, and adore Marsha P. Johnson, without erasing Stormé DeLarverie and the other masculine individuals who stood alongside drag queens and were targeted by police.

The clipping shown above, in its original context, includes the heading "An FTM Started the Stonewall Riot!" There is the possibility that the masculine-dressed AFAB person who instigated the uprising was in fact a trans man, but according to numerous other sources, Stormé DeLarverie was the masculine individual. Perhaps we may never know for sure, but this open question nonetheless draws attention to the historical erasure of butch lesbians, male impersonators, transmasculine people, and trans men from Stonewall... And from LGBT+ history more generally.

If all your Pride Month posts praise trans women but deliberately leave out butches and trans men, you are perpetuating the myth that masculine people have never been involved with our own history.

Marsha P. Johnson's legacy, some of which is factually false, should not persist if it requires hostility towards equally vulnerable LGBT+ elders. The isolation of masculine LGBT+ individuals, particularly those who are assigned female at birth, is worsened by the impression that we have no inherent worth in LGBT+ history. Or in general life.

This was Stormé DeLarverie in her youth. A beautiful, strong, mixed-heritage, masculine lesbian who was targeted for her self-expression, and likely punished by the same phobic attackers who targeted Marsha P. Johnson.

[ID: DeLarverie standing outside in a suit, holding a cigarette in one hand. She has short hair, shined shoes, and a neat appearance. She is looking into the distance thoughtfully. END ID. Source.]

[ID: A photograph of DeLarverie wearing a leather jacket over a dark shirt. Her hair is short, she looks powerfully masculine, and she is looking directly into the camera. END ID. Source.]

Here is an excerpt from a letter that Lou Sullivan (an FTM pioneer who lived from 1951 to 1991) sent to Rupert Raj (another FTM pioneer, born in 1952, who is still alive) in 1987.

[TRANSCRIPT: Am also enclosing a photo of Storme de Larverie, a black woman who was the emcee and a male impersonator in the legendary "Jewel Box Revue." Her drag routine dazzled audiences in black theatres across America from 1939 to 1973, with considerable commercial success in the 50's and 60's. END TRANSCRIPT. Source.]

For no reason other than to express solidarity with, and celebrate, a fellow masculine individual who was born into a female life, he brings her up to his friend. Isn't that wonderful? Why don't we celebrate her with the same love nowadays, I wonder? Why don't we celebrate drag kings the same way we do drag queens? Why don't male impersonators get the respect and admiration that female impersonators do?

This was DeLarverie, approaching the end of her life.

[ID: Two photographs of Stormé DeLarverie. She is wearing a grey bucket hat in both, and has white hair. She wears bracelets, rings, and collared shirts. In the first, she is looking directly at the camera, leaning on one hand. In the second, she is making a peace sign with her thumb and forefinger, smiling at the photographer. END ID. Source.]

These two photographs were taken from an article titled, Gay Community’s Rosa Parks Faces Death, Impoverished and Alone. That article was written in 2010.

She died in 2014.

Why? Why do we allow butch pioneers, FTM activists, and other masculine LGBT+ elders to die in obscurity?

This Pride Month, as you praise trans women for their undeniable and valuable contributions to our shared history, please remember that masculine people have always made equally valuable contributions.

I have been accused of transmisogyny for simply pointing out the factual truth of Stonewall history. I, a gay trans man who does his research thoroughly, have been accused of transphobia for sticking up for butches who are being erased. Whenever I point out that Pride Month posts disproportionately erase masculine individuals, someone inevitably takes the time to inform me that trans men don't matter enough to warrant being mentioned. Sometimes they even get creative, and use slurs against me! So much for LGBT+ solidarity! And, let me clear this up once and for all:

Dismissing DeLarverie as being less important than Johnson is straight up lesbophobia. There's no two ways about it.

This cannot be allowed to continue. Learn your history. Show respect for your elders. If black lives matter to you, DeLarverie should matter to you as well.

LGBT+ progress is not the result of one single person's efforts. LGBT+ history is not confined to Stonewall alone- or America, for that matter! LGBT+ history is global. LGBT+ history has always involved the masculine alongside the feminine.

If you would like to learn more about trans men, and the work that was done before Stonewall, see this post. Open your mind and heart to the truth of LGBT+ history. And please share any historical facts/links you may have!!

I also recommend reading Stone Butch Blues for an insightful, beautiful, and brutal exploration of butch experiences. Note that the content may trigger you, so you should research it before reading- but nonetheless, this is the kind of struggle we are erasing, if we let butch histories disappear into obscurity. Butches have suffered a hell of a lot. Just as much as trans women.

To any butches, transmasculine people, trans men, and questioning individuals who currently do not feel represented by mainstream retellings of history: I love you, and I'm sorry. I feel your pain. I wish I could give you a big warm hug.

-Budgie

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