Mom Asks You To Remember!

Hey Kids –
I’m sure that many of you had no idea or knowledge that yesterday Sunday, November 20, was the 7th Annual Transgender Day of Remembrance. This is the day set aside to remember those that have gone before – and a fitting beginning to International Transgender Awareness Week. The Day of Remembrance was started by Gwen Smith after the unsolved November 1998 murder of Rita Hester in Boston.
On Thursday in New York City a street corner in Greenwich Village was named after Stonewall veteran and transgender activist Sylvia Rivera. If you do not know the significance of Rivera or Stonewall to your own daily life – you better not tell me because I’ll come to where ever you are and whoop you upside the head!
On June 28, 1969 Sylvia Rivera was one of the first protestors to throw a bottle at the police while they were raiding the Stonewall Inn Bar. She realized even then that this was the “turning point” in the LGBT Rights Movement. When Rivera was asked by the press why they were protesting she shot back, “Hell hath no fury like a Drag Queen scorned!” Her simple statement has since become a battle cry that is still used today by many in the struggle for LGBT Rights.
In 1970 Sylvia joined the Gay Activists Alliance in an effort to pass a gay rights bill in New York City. She was never one to be told, “No” by anyone. Rivera once went as far as scaling the City Hall building in dress and high heels to crash a meeting. That’s commitment.
As the years past the mainstream gay culture made her feel out of place at her own party. In 1995 when activists dropped transgender rights from the proposed gay rights bill to make it more acceptable Gay writer Michael Musto interviewed Rivera about the issue, “When things started getting more mainstream it was like, ‘We don’t need you no more.”
Even though she, herself, was frequently homeless she co-founded Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) with Marsha P. Johnson, to provide temporary housing for others in the transgender community.
Melissa Sklarz, co-chair for the LGBT Committee of Community Board #2, said she acted on a friend’s suggestion to name the street corner after Rivera. “In the past we did very somber events. But we wanted to start celebrating our lives rather than mourning our dead.” When told of the decision Smith concurred, “I can’t think of anyone who is more deserving. She and Marsha P. Johnson were really the mothers of the modern trans rights movement.”
Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE), said Rivera is the first out transgender person to have a street named after her. Sklarz added the naming of the northeast corner of Christopher and Hudson streets after Rivera also had a political message worthy of its namesake. “Right now we’re having trouble with the community in Greenwich Village as the residents protest the LGBT people who hang out there as destructive to their way of life.
We thought naming this corner after this iconic figure who once prowled here would remind everyone of the neighborhood’s history.”
This type of in-your-face activism was something Rivera was well known for. Even as she lay dying in the hospital when local gay leaders stopped by the intensive care unit to ask her advice, she gathered up all the strength in her tiny frame still hooked up to monitors, IVs and a morphine pump and gave them hell for not being inclusive enough! She died a few hours later on February, 19, 2002, only 50 years old.
She was a unique lady for a unique time that now shall never be forgotten. Take the time to know your LGBT History – it’s very important for yourself and all those who will come after us. This once again proves my theory, “If it weren’t for a Drag Queen none of this would be possible.”