and if you can, go and see The Death and Life of Marsha P Johnson, which includes this footage as part of a fuller segment on Sylvia Rivera’s life right up until her death. what an amazing person who the world was not ready for.
(Transcription follows🙂 Sylvia Rivera: I may be—
Crowd: [booing]
Sylvia Rivera: Y’all better quiet down. I’ve been trying to get up here all day for your gay brothers and your gay sisters in jail that write me every motherfucking week and ask for your help and you all don’t do a goddamn thing for them.
Have you ever been beaten up and raped and jailed? Now think about it. They’ve been beaten up and raped after they’ve had to spend much of their money in jail to get their [inaudible], and try to get their sex changes. The women have tried to fight for their sex changes or to become women. On the women’s liberation and they write ‘STAR,’ not to the women’s groups, they do not write women, they do not write men, they write ‘STAR’ because we’re trying to do something for them.
I have been to jail. I have been raped. And beaten. Many times! By men, heterosexual men that do not belong in the homosexual shelter. But, do you do anything for me? No. You tell me to go and hide my tail between my legs. I will not put up with this shit. I have been beaten. I have had my nose broken. I have been thrown in jail. I have lost my job. I have lost my apartment for gay liberation and you all treat me this way? What the fuck’s wrong with you all? Think about that!
I do not believe in a revolution, but you all do. I believe in the gay power. I believe in us getting our rights, or else I would not be out there fighting for our rights. That’s all I wanted to say to you people. If you all want to know about the people in jail and do not forget Bambi L’amour, and Dora Mark, Kenny Metzner, and other gay people in jail, come and see the people at Star House on Twelfth Street on 640 East Twelfth Street between B and C apartment 14.
The people are trying to do something for all of us, and not men and women that belong to a white middle class white club. And that’s what you all belong to!
REVOLUTION NOW! Gimme a ‘G’! Gimme an ‘A’! Gimme a ‘Y’! Gimme a ‘P’! Gimme an ‘O’! Gimme a ‘W’! Gimme an ‘E! Gimme an ‘R’! [crying] Gay power! Louder! GAY POWER!
There’s some really important commentary on this event by several trans women on the previous upload of the video. I’m going to quote it here so it’s not lost; unfortunately the original commenters have deleted their blogs or gone private so I can’t provide full attribution.
lilacbootlaces said:
[[Trigger warning: suicide]]
Sylvia went home that night and attempted suicide.
Marsha Johnson came home and found her in time to save her life.
Sylvia left the movement after that day and didn’t come back for twenty years.
this is incredible, she is incredible, I highly recommend watching it
but I think the addendum re: the effect of this day on sylvia is really important
so often we valorise decontextualised moments of tough, articulate resistance and rage
and
the suffering of the people who embodied them is not acknowledged, it’s
uncomfortable, it’s not inspiring, we want them to stay tough and cool
and stylish forever
which is particularly terrible when I think about how sylvia felt like that because of women like me — women who are now watching this video and feeling inspired and impressed
and maybe a bit pleased with ourselves for finally having watched a
speech by the famous and really cool to name-drop sylvia rivera
girl-assassin said:
rebloggin for the true as fuck commentary (bolding mine)
n
like, on one hand this moment is decontextualized as fuck, but on the
other hand a lot of ppl try to hyper-contextualize it to make it
“history” and a very specific historical moment, so we (cis women) can
be like “oh so sad that’s how it was in the 1970s, radfems were so
awful, but it was only the whole second-wave scene that was the problem,
glad that’s over.”
Like have we forgotten the fact that Sylvia
only died in 2002? And she died young, if she were still alive she
wouldn’t even be 65 yet. I know hella older ppl in NYC who knew her
personally, and hella “leaders” of the NYC queer scene pulled horrific
shit on her constantly in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s, like literally
until the day she died (ppl from Empire State Pride agenda literally
went to St. Vincents to beef with her on her death bed) Where are the
video tapes/memorializing of that shit?
N now the Manhattan LGBT
center on 13th st has a room dedicated to her memory, despite the fact
that very center permanently banned her in 1995 for daring to suggest
they should let homeless QTPOC sleep there in sub-zero weather.
N
now there’s a whole homeless trans youth shelter on 36th st named after
her, Sylvia’s Place, that kicked my TWOC friend out on the streets for
testing positive for marijuana; failing to recognize how fucked up that
is in a shelter named after a woman who struggled with addiction all her
life, and was very vocal about the relationship between drug use and
the stress of living under constant threats of violence.
N from
the late 90s onward rich gays and lesbians openly fought against Sylvia
to try to shut down 24/7 access to the piers that she n hella other
QTPOC cruised and lived on bc they were bringing down the property
values of their multi-million west village apartments.
N like 90%
of the individual people who perpetuated fucked up violence against
Sylvia are still alive and high-profile leaders in the NYC LGBT
“community” today.
So like yes, good, remember the oppressive
weight of our history of transmisogyny…but also remember that this shit
specifically ain’t even history, it’s the current reality of the NYC
queer/trans hierarchy today—like not even figuratively, literally the same people
who pulled shit like this on Sylvia are still alive n well n all over
NYC cutting the ribbons to the newest Sylvia Rivera memorial n
eulogizing her like they never tried to fucking kill her themselves.
As we approach June and the anniversary of Stonewall, I just want to remind everyone that twerfs/terfs have no connection to the spirit of Pride or Stonewall. Those were founded by the very people they want to dehumanize, and twerf ideology aligns with the anti-lgbt.
Trans women were the founders of LGBT liberation and too many people are trying to deny that (these people are transphobes)
Asian wlw and mlm are amazing and deserve everything good in the world
hi I made this post bc I have never seen a post supporting Asian lgbt folks and know a fence but supporting your local gays means supporting us too, especially when we aren’t as visible as others.
I’ve grown up living in a predominantly straight white world and consumed mostly western media all my life and idk bout you but there’s not a lot of us out there in the media or the entire entertainment industry actually. Asians in western media is already cutting it fine. Asian lgbt folks in the media? there’s like 3 people I can think of off the top of my head.
anyway I’m getting carried away here so. All I’m asking is for u to pls reblog this. give love to ur local Asian gay bc we don’t get enough
Acephobia in the LGBT+ Community from the documentary (A)sexuality.
It is just…so fucking weird how threatened people feel when it comes to Asexuality. I still can’t wrap my mind around it.
I’m so happy this post is being reblogged by LBGT+ people who aren’t asexual. I keep on reading posts by non-ace LGBT+ people of support to the ace community, and of being stunned by this reaction by a movement which should know better than to judge. AND THAT MAKES THIS ACE SO FREAKING HAPPY. The woman in the first photo expresses my sentiment. I know I belong in the queer/LGBTQIA movement. I want to belong. But I just don’t know if I’m welcome. I’m so happy that there are so many people on Tumblr who do not fall into the catagory of outright refusal of asexuality.
I know not a lot of people understand asexuality. And I know there’s confusion about it, about our experiences, and about how we fit in the movement. But let’s talk about this. Let’s have this conversation.
I mostly don’t delve into the ace tags, but I hear there’s a lot of ace-hate that and I really don’t get it. I don’t understand how asexuality is threatening.
You know what I (as a queer ace-spectrum person) find most threatening? Getting unwanted sexual unwanted advances from both queer and straight people. I’ve gotten them from people of all spectrums and it always makes me profoundly uncomfortable, and often unsafe. It just boggles my mind how people are upset by the concept of asexuality. That’s like getting really mad at someone who isn’t hungry. What’s the point? Just shut up eat your own sandwich. (And stop chewing on me.)
Wow, the fuck the people in those images.
Nobody has the right to disrespect anybody else’s sense of self. It may not be for, you but that does not give you the right to be an asshole.
We really need to push more for LGBTQIA+ to be a standard,instead of just LGBT, especially considering that even the B and T are already invisible in much of the community.
Not supporting some of us = not supporting all of us.
Not supporting some of us = not supporting all of us.
It really, really does bear repeating.
I couldn’t be further from ace, but for serious.
If we’re not in this together, we’re not in this at all.
This makes me so angry. I have friends who are ace, and they are just as much a part of the queer community as I am.
We need to embrace asexuality and treat it with the respect that it deserves.
I heart the non-aces who reblog this so hard. ❤ Thank you friends.
Steel Phoenix Studios 