Happy Pride, Y’all!
June has not always been associated with love and celebration—the very first gay pride event was a riot, quite literally!
It’s now well established that the modern gay liberation movement began in the early hours of June 28, 1969 when New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay club located in Greenwich Village. The raid sparked a riot among bar patrons and neighborhood residents as police roughly hauled employees and patrons out of the bar, leading to six days of protests and violent clashes with law enforcement.
Perhaps less well known is the important role two individuals played in the events leading up to—and after—Stonewall.
According to the National Parks Service, Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera were self proclaimed drag performers and vibrant, indelible figures in Greenwich Village street life. The women were prominent figures in the Stonewall Uprisings, but their efforts were even more enduring, with the uprisings being just part of their unending commitment to social justice. They emerged from the events that took place at Stonewall in 1969 as leaders in the Gay Liberation Movement. Together they helped found the group STAR (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries), which offered housing to homeless and transgender youth, a particularly vulnerable population. By opening the first LGBTQ+ (Lesbian Gay Transgender Bisexual Queer) youth shelter in North America, these trailblazers became the first Trans women of color to lead an organization in the United States.
There’s good reason Chanika and I feature the following words to capture the core of our work together: Equity. Belonging. Authenticity. Who better to represent these ideals than Marsha and Sylvia!?
As we center equity during this month of pride, how can we follow their example? How do we authentically show up in the world? How do we create spaces that include others to truly belong?
True liberation starts with validating and affirming ourselves and each other. We take PRIDE in crafting conversations that celebrate and love all the parts that make us the unique people we are.
Scholar Dr. Chris Emdin recently put it this way:
Not operating from a place of fullness or truth about all that you are will always manifest as feeling less than when you enter into spaces not designed for you. However, if you own and love all of who you are, it doesn’t matter if a space was designed for you because you operate within it knowing all that you bring to it makes it better. You no longer exist to try to fit into spaces; you exist to transform them.
Marsha and Sylvia were truly ahead of their time!
