Marsha P. Johnson was not a trans woman. He was in a documentary two days before he died where he said “I’m a man”. In the 60s and 70s, he identified as a “gay transvestite”. His close friends used both male and female pronouns and he didn’t take offense to either. He didn’t even live as “Marsha” all of the time, he went back and forth between living as Malcolm and living as “Marsha”.

Sylvia Rivera wasn’t a trans woman either. In 1971 he called himself a “transvestite” and a “half-sister”. He wrote an essay titled “Transvestites: Your Half Sisters and Half Brothers of the Revolution” where he says that “Transvestites are homosexual men and women who dress in clothes of the opposite sex.” In an interview in 1995 with Randy Wicker and in a 2002 essay titled “Queens In Exile, The Forgotten Ones”, he variously calls himself a “gay man”, a “gay girl” (probably in the “gurl” sense, not the female sense), and a “drag queen.” He knew he was male…“The early 60s was not a good time for drag queens, effeminate boys or boys that wore makeup like we did. Back then we were beat up by the police, by everybody. I didn’t really come out as a drag queen until the late 60s.” He did not identify with the word transgender…“People now want to call me a lesbian because I’m with Julia [his mtf partner], and I say, “No. I’m just me. I’m not a lesbian.” I’m tired of being labeled. I don’t even like the label transgender. I’m tired of living with labels. I just want to be who I am.”

Lastly, Marsha Johnson has alleged that Sylvia Rivera lied about being at the Stonewall riots, Rivera might not have been there at all. This is backed up by Stonewall historian David Carter who says that Rivera’s claim to have been at the riot was a “fabrication” and that Rivera’s various tellings of the story were riddled with inconsistencies. The true story, backed up by Marsha’s roommate Randy Wicker and gay activist Doric Wilson, is that Rivera had fallen asleep in a public park after taking heroin and he only learned about the riots after Marsha Johnson found him, woke him up, and recounted the events. According to Carter, no credible witness has ever been found who saw Rivera at Stonewall during the riots.







Marsha P Johnson documentary



Silvia Rivera documentary

