Talk:Sylvia Rivera

message: Is it considered appropriate to refer to the subject of this article as "she" instead of "he?"  What are the qualifications for being refered to as a female on wikipedia?  Should actual surgery be required, or should anyone be allowed to ask that their gender related pronouns be changed?
69.207.233.236 04:01, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sylvia Rivera identified as a woman her entire adult life.  My understanding is that a subject's gender identity is respected.  (For reference, a number of transgender people today choose not to undergo surgery.  As opposed to being "pre-op," they may refer to themselves as "non-op")  -Danspalding 07:22, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

text: I understand your point (as a couple others here seem to not) but given that very early on in her life & very early on in the article Rivera is shown to act effeminately & was probably trans (the confusion about terminology & identity is addressed elsewhere in these "talks") & that she also changed her name to Sylvia very early on there wouldn't be much of a point.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Usuario Escolano (talk • contribs) 21:32, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: He/She

message: I noticed that in many places in the article, Sylvia Rivera was referred to only as "Sylvia."  I changed that to "Rivera" to put it into encyclopedic format ("wikifying").  But is there a good reason for her to be referred to as only "Sylvia"?  -Danspalding 19:05, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Just "Sylvia"?

message: For possible use later: Fred Sargeant, 2024. Sylvia Rivera: the dark truth about a trans icon. Spiked, https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/01/14/sylvia-rivera-the-dark-truth-about-a-trans-icon/, 14 January 2024. Rorybowman (talk) 00:50, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  STAR House, Mob and Criminal Ties 

message: User:88.122.12.140 added the following on 16 October:
:She is often described as a veteran of the Stonewall Riots - the protest against homophobic abuse that, in the minds of many, birthed the modern LGBT rights movement. Some credit her with being the first to strike back at the police and spark the riots. In fact, there is no evidence that Sylvia Rivera was at the Stonewall either the first night of the riots or any of the subsequent nights that week. No contemporary account of the Stonewall rebellion makes any mention of either Sylvia Rivera or Rey Rivera (her birth name, which Martin Duberman misspells throughout his book).
:None of the very few photographs of Stonewall participants includes Sylvia Rivera. And several months after the riots, in an interview she gave to a gay 'zine, Sylvia Rivera made no mention of any involvement in the riots.  Nor does David Carter make any mention of Sylvia Rivera in his book, "Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution," the only book-length account of the riots. 
I am going to do some revising on this page and add citations. This criticism needs to be sourced, or else it's original research, not to mention not neutral. Jokestress 03:33, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: David Carter is the main proponent of the theory that Sylvia Rivera was not present at Stonewall. Carter's viewpoint has been strongly criticized by Benjamin Shepard in his piece “Sylvia and Sylvia’s Children: A Battle for a Queer Public Space”, included in That’s Revolting!: Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation, edited by Mattilda, aka Matt Bernstein Sycamore. (Brooklyn: Soft Skull Press, 2004.  97-112. ) This discussion is worthy of inclusion in the Wikipedia article and is covered in some of the references I added (articles by Gan and Retzloff).--Mgdelarosa (talk) 08:48, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

text: This is pure unadulterated transphobia. But it shouldn't be removed as it is part of our history, having straight acting homosexuals try to write us out of history, just as they trying to do with Sylvia. If someone else wrote about how lesbians were re-writing feminist history their would be screams of 'homophobia', yet is it fine to abuse others in the ways you were abused yourself? X-mass (talk) 01:38, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

text: That's blatantly false. The police often brought people into the bathroom to check their genitals because there were so many trans people there and they needed ground on which to arrest them. In many accounts of stonewall, people of colour were also excluded, but it was a very diverse crowd in there. Trans people are written out of histories, not shoehorned into them.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 23.16.91.232 (talk) 06:46, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stonewall controversy 

message: From a caption in 2000:
:Sylvia Rivera-Murray celebrates as she is released from police custody after being arrested as part of the Soulforce act of civil disobedience, Tuesday November 14, 2000. Rivera-Murray took part in the 1969 Stonewall Bar Riots a nd has been arrested over 25 times since while standing for the rights of GLBT people. 
Can't find a published source that uses this, though. Jokestress 04:19, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Julia Murray was Rivera's life partner. See Sylvia Rivera Talk at LGMNY, 2001.--Mgdelarosa (talk) 08:50, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sylvia Rivera-Murray 

message: I am adding content and three academic references regarding Sylvia Rivera's Puerto Rican and Venezuelan background. It is distressing that in the entire article this was never mentioned.--Mgdelarosa (talk) 07:19, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I added five academic references on her Latina identity.--Mgdelarosa (talk) 08:42, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Latina identity

message: I moved it to the life section. --Tom 14:51, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I edited the first paragraph of the life section to make it read better, and also added some additional information and two references.--Mgdelarosa (talk) 17:53, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Ethnicity out of lead

message: Was Rivera Venezuelan on her mother's side & Puerto Rican on her father's or vice versa? The article is unclear. Also sorry if I'm not doing this right I'm kinda new to these talk pages. Usuario Escolano (talk) 19:34, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question about heritage 

message: Read the sources instead of edit-warring, IP. - CorbieVreccan ☊ ☼ 18:08, 24 June 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Yet more on shifting identity 

message: I think it could be more accurate to say that, for an AMAB person who transitions, especially one who lived through the 1960's into the 2000's, the thing doing the "shifting" is not her identity but the culture codes and language used in the struggle for cultural legitimacy and respect. It seems more respectful not to imply that her identity was somehow shifting more than the average queer or trans person during that time. 208.38.228.17 (talk) 01:42, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Read the sources, watch the video interviews, and take note of the years in which they take place. This should clarify things for you. - CorbieVreccan ☊ ☼ 20:42, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi! I read the sources and watched the videos, and to me, at least as an adult, she reads consistently as an AMAB person who preferred she/her pronouns and a feminine presentation. I kind of think it says more about us if we think of this as "shifting." Were you referring to something specific that I may have missed?208.38.228.17 (talk) 01:17, 6 July 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  On shifting discourse 

message: The IP that blanked some of the sourced content did some restructuring that might be helpful, but not if it involves additional puffery, or putting existing puffery up top and cutting sourced criticism. As it is, there is puffery we should cut. The problem here is that Rivera is not a reliable narrator for many of these incidents, so needs additional sourcing. Johnson's version of events in the years they spent time together never wavered, while Rivera's changed many times. Carter in particular has more recently given details about how he was pressured to boost Rivera's fabricated narrative, even though he, and many others, knew it was false. We have to present this neutrally, and not with any WP:PEACOCKery. Rivera of course did other things that are notable and true. We can either keep the chronological narrative as-is, or possibly break it up a bit with sections about different events and orgs. But either way, we have to keep WP's voice NPOV. - CorbieVreccan ☊ ☼ 20:42, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Did some rearranging for chronology; that should help. The problem is... not all sources are reliable. It's our responsibility to vet the sources and check for corroboration and credibility. Some that make false claims were misinterpretations on the part of interviewers, others were engaging in fabrications the same way Sylvia did. If the discussions didn't happen here, they've happened on one of the interlinked pages. There are additional sources on the linked articles, as well. I've actually added sourcing to rescue some claims about Sylvia that were removed, such as photographic evidence placing Sylvia at GLF actions. - CorbieVreccan ☊ ☼ 22:56, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

text: There needs to be sourcing, not opinion, for Rivera's activism. A claim by Rivera with no supporting evidence is sadly insufficient. Driveby edits have inserted opinion without sourcing. If there is no sourcing, it can't be included. - CorbieVreccan ☊ ☼ 20:26, 3 October 2021 (UTC)
thread_title: Activism