Woman of the Day: Sylvia Rivera, she was a bisexual transgender activist. She was a founding member of both the Gay Liberation Front and the Gay Activists Alliance and helped found Street Transgender Action Revolutionaries. She was present at the Stonewall Riots, which happened today in 1969.
Sylvia Rivera calling out gays and lesbians for their trans exclusion in 1973 at the Christopher Street Liberation Day rally (x)
Oh yeah, we mixed with lesbians. We always got along back then. All that division between the lesbian women and queens came after 1974 when Jane O'Leary and the radical lesbians came up. The radicals did not accept us or masculine-looking women who looked like men. And those lesbian women might not even have been trans. But we did get along famously in the early 60’s. I’ve been to many a dyke party… The lesbian community today has a lot to learn from the old ways of the lesbian community.
—Sylvia Rivera (via montagnarde)
July 2 is the birthday of transgender revolutionary Sylvia Rivera, a founding member of the Gay Liberation Front (a militant LGBT organization that took its inspiration from the National Liberation Front in South Vietnam in the aftermath of Stonewall), and STAR (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries), dedicated to helping advocate for and protect street drag queens and transwomen in NYC.
She was an ally of the Black Panther Party and the Young Lords. Here is a speech Rivera gave at a rally in New York City in 1973.
*TRIGGER WARNING: Descriptions of sexual assault/rape in this speech.
Via Being a Socialist
