Sylvia Rivera

Sylvia Rivera at the Stonewall 25th Anniversary March

## About

Sylvia Rivera (1951-2002) was a prominent activist and pioneer in the fight for queer and transgender rights.

## Early Life

Sylvia Rivera was born on July 2nd, 1951 in the Bronx in New York City. She was born to a Venezuelan mother and a Puerto Rican father. Sylvia’s mother committed suicide when she was three years old. After that, Sylvia went to go live with her grandmother for a few years, but she experienced beatings due to her effeminate behavior and the darkness of her skin. Eventually, after experiencing harassment based on her perceived sexual identity as gay, she decided to run away from home at the age of 11.

Sylvia ran away to 42nd street in New York where she was taken in by a community of queer people, mainly drag queens and sex workers. Sylvia did begin sex work before she left home at the age of 10 and 11, but it was only with her uncle for a little money. As she found this new life, she adopted the name Sylvia and continued sex work. She moved around frequently with other homeless queer people, and like many homeless queer youth, she would frequent bars with Mafia ties to keep themselves safe. One of those bars happened to be the Stonewall Inn.

## Stonewall Riots

Sylvia has said that on June 28, 1969 everybody was out, partying and mourning. Judy Garland had just died, and while Sylvia has stated that was not the reason the riots happened as many sources claim, it was why they were out. While it is rumored that the Stonewall Inn was a drag bar, Sylvia recalls a different history. It was a white male bar, where older, better off men would go to pick up young boys of different races. Sylvia recalls in her writings that few drag queens were allowed into the bar, unless they had connections.

On the night of the riots, the police came with only a few men and, unexpectedly, the patrons fought back. Sylvia, aged 17, who was always dressing in drag was taken outside by the police with the rest of the patrons. Her and the other street queen began throwing coins at them repeatedly antagonizing the police by screaming “pigs” at them. Sylvia recounts in one of her famous speeches “Bitch On Wheels” that someone ripped a parking meter out of the ground and began ramming the door with it. Eventually the conflict erupted. Sylvia Rivera and her friend, a fellow trans woman and drag queen, Marsha P. Johnson are both credited with throwing the first brick or Molotov cocktail at the police, but Sylvia states that she was the second to throw a Molotov cocktail.

Other people from other bars began to flood the streets to take up the fight, including radical straight people as Sylvia often remarks, and the riots got bigger. The queens began to sing a famous song as more police arrived almost an hour later that is remembered by Sylvia in her speech “Bitch On Wheels” as such:

> “We are the Stonewall girls. We wear our hair in curls. We wear our dungarees above our nelly knees. We show our pubic hairs, etc.”
>
>

After the Stonewall Riots, Sylvia took a back seat for awhile and relaxed her participation in the community and activism, but she came back with a vengeance.

## STAR House

After a sit in at Weinstein Hall which started because gay dances were stopped when the straight people complained, Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson formed STAR (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries) in 1971, where they maintained a house to give shelter to homeless queer youth. STAR “died” in 1973, according to Sylvia, on the fourth anniversary of Stonewall at Pride. She was scheduled to speak at the rally, but had to force her way to the stage where she gave her famous “Y’all Better Quiet Down” speech. On January 6, 2001, STAR was revived. Eventually, the word “transvestite” changed to “transgender” in the STAR acronym.

## Later Activism

Marsha P. Johnson informed Sylvia of meetings for the Gay Liberation Front which she claimed to enjoy at first as it highlighted a multitude of issues. But she later joined the Gay Activists Alliance. She was arrested during a Vietnam War protest, that she was not a part of, while petitioning for gay rights. She claims this arrest is what started her dedication to activism. She joined the GAA the day after she got out of jail and stayed with them for awhile. But as with many queer rights movements, they were excluding of trans people and drag queens, and she decided to leave.

In 1974 Sylvia attempted suicide in the same river that Marsha P. Johnson would be found dead in years later. After her survival she vowed to never return to activism. However, on January 6, 2001, STAR was revived. Eventually, the word “transvestite” changed to “transgender” in the STAR acronym. She also had a partner named Julia later in her life and was then called a lesbian, and it was the response to this accusation in which she rejected all labels, including transgender. Her life ended as Sylvia, with a very fluid approach to her gender as she refers to herself in her final writings as a gay man, a drag queen, a trans woman, but most importantly Sylvia. On February 19, 2002, Sylvia Rivera died of liver cancer at the age of 50, but she remains a hero for the LGBTQ+ community. Her last goal was stated by a friend to be the destruction of the Human Rights Campaign and trans-exclusive mainstream queer rights organizations.

## Notable Works

* “Transvestites: Your Half-Sisters & Half-Brothers of the Revolution” written in 1971

* “Y’all Better Quiet Down” Speech at Liberation Day in 1973

* “Bitch On Wheels” Speech in June 2001

* “Queens in Exile, The Forgotten Ones” written in 2002

## References

http://makinggayhistory.com/podcast/episode-1-1/

http://outhistory.org/exhibits/show/tgi-bios/sylvia-rivera

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/20/nyregion/sylvia-rivera-50-figure-in-birth-of-the-gay-liberation-movement.html?mcubz=1

https://untorellipress.noblogs.org/files/2011/12/STAR.pdf

https://www.advocate.com/commentary/2014/07/02/op-ed-remembering-our-queer-history-and-wishing-happy-birthday-sylvia-rivera

http://npg.si.edu/blog/welcome-collection-sylvia-rivera