Over the past year, New York has seen big changes to its monuments – a controversial statue of J Marion Sims was torn down from Central Park after protests, while a new “anti-monument” paying tribute to Shirley Chisholm, the first black congresswoman, is slated to go up next summer in Brooklyn.

This week, it was announced that transgender activists Marsha P Johnson and Sylvia Rivera will be remembered in a monument expected in 2021. Johnson and Rivera were key figures in New York’s gay liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s, and together they protested at the Stonewall uprising in 1969, which marks its 50th anniversary in June.

This isn’t America’s first trans monument, but it is the first in New York. It’s an initiative of New York’s department of cultural affairs and She Built NYC, a public arts campaign to honor pioneering New York women who have contributed to the city’s history (they’re working on monuments to honor the jazz singer Billie Holiday, the lighthouse keeper Katherine Walker and the civil rights activist Elizabeth Jennings Graham).

New York has only five monuments of women but over 150 statues of men. Their goal is to boost the ratio to 50% of women monuments.

This new monument, which will cost $750,000, will be in the heart of Greenwich Village, in the Ruth Wittenberg Triangle, a small triangular patch on the corner of Seventh Avenue and Greenwich Avenue. It will be close to the artist George Segal’s 1992 gay monument of two life-sized couples in Christopher Park, as well as the LGBT memorial designed by Anthony Goicolea in Hudson River Park, memorializing the victims of the Orlando nightclub shooting in 2016, where nine boulders each have a prism of a rainbow.

“It’s extraordinarily powerful to see Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P Johnson recognized for their leadership and immense contributions to the LGBTQ equality movement,” said Alex Schmider, the associate director of transgender representation at Glaad.

“A permanent installation in their name and honor will not only serve as a reminder of transgender women of color’s existence and persistence, but also send a message of reverence to the history and legacy of our community’s pioneers, without whom we would not be where we are today.”

Sylvia Rivera in 1994. Photograph: Justin Sutcliffe/AP

Though the design has yet to be unveiled, it will raise awareness to trans visibility. “We hope this monument is a lasting tribute to two women who devoted themselves to lifesaving change for people throughout their community,” said Gillian Branstetter, a spokeswoman for the National Center for Transgender Equality.

“Transgender history is American history and lasting recognition of the work done by those who came before us is a crucial step towards honoring the past and reaching the future Marsha and Sylvia worked to build.”

In other American cities, St Louis has the Transgender Memorial Garden, the world’s first garden to memorialize victims of anti-trans violence, while the Legacy Walk in Chicago honors the trans activist Christine Jorgensen, among others.

Glennda Testone, the executive director of the LGBT Community Center in New York, says it’s about time to honor trans pioneers like Johnson and Rivera.

“Transgender non-conforming people have historically been omitted from ‘official’ narratives about the LGBTQ rights movement, and that lack of visibility is something we are still fighting today,” said Testone. “With New York City creating these monuments, recognizing two activists who protested such omissions decades ago and founded an organization specifically for queer and trans people, they are making an important statement that we will not go back. We will only move forward toward full equity for the TGNC community.”

Johnson and Rivera duo co-founded the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries, an organization which had a shelter for members of the trans community who were shunned by their families. In a time when LGBTQ statues are scarce, this signals a shift.

The Stonewall Inn, a historic landmark on Christopher Street. Photograph: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

“We must bring our attention and action to the persistence of systemic violence against trans and gender-nonconforming communities of color today,” said Allie Rickard, a curator at the Brooklyn Museum. “The proposed location of the monument is only one block away from the former Women’s House of Detention at 10 Greenwich Avenue; until its closure in 1974, the prison was a notorious site of brutality and violence against queer and trans individuals.”

Johnson said in a 1972 interview that she wanted “to see gay people liberated and free and to have equal rights that other people have in America”. In reference to the Stonewall riots, she said: “We believe in picking up the gun, starting a revolution if necessary.”

Warhol featured Johnson in his series of Polaroid portraits called Ladies and Gentlemen, a 1975 portfolio of screenprints, some of which are currently on view at Lévy Gorvy gallery in New York until 15 June.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising. The New York Pride Parade on 30 June is commemorating it, in part, by inviting the cast of Pose, including trans actor Dominique Jackson, to be one of their grand marshals.

“We were the ones that were there at Stonewall, it was because we couldn’t be ourselves during the time of the Stonewall riots, but it wasn’t a riot, it was a rebellion because people were saying ‘no more,’” said Jackson, a published author. “Marsha P Johnson and Sylvia Rivera were saying: ‘We’re not going to be arrested and taken to jail for nothing anymore and we’re not going to be treated as less than.’ It took almost 50 years for trans women to be seen on TV and write books and be published in magazines, all this stuff. I’m honored to be there.”