We NEED to reboot Pride.



Yes: visibility & celebration are crucial. Lifesaving. But we’ve left out the most important part.



Pride Month, every year, MUST mean ending police brutality; the prison system; and poverty and homelessness.



And this year, we need to USE that “second Pride” or “Wrath” month we always joke about having in July.

[Image of Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, with arm upraised in the sunlight, gazing up and to the left.

Text says, “Has dedicated her career to fighting the prison-industrial complex’s effect on TGNC and intersex lives,” followed by a quote:

“Inside of prison there is no one to hold accountable, no one to yell, ‘Help,’ and have a response. And the abuses are tantamount to being murdered and still being alive.”]

People riot when they have very little to lose and can’t afford to lose more.



The people who began rioting at Stonewall were criminalized just for existing.



For being people of color. For being homeless. For being sex workers. For breaking the rules of gender.

[Image of Victoria Cruz wearing a Tainó headband with feathers and cowrie shells, standing with a cane, in a black shirt that says “We Make A Difference” that she has said was printed when Marsha P. Johnson was murdered.

Text says, “This Stonewall rioter has spent her life advocating for housing, welfare, and trauma support, for trans people and everyone else who needs it.”

Followed by a quote: “The world 'might have been always [violent toward trans people], but they weren’t as vicious as they are today.’”]

Some only for one or two of these things. Some for all of them.



They became activists against the police, prisons, and poverty. For our community, and beyond.



The movement quickly dropped their causes.

[Picture of Sylvia Rivera sitting in her apartment circa 2000, in front of a VCR and a shelf of stuffed animals.

Text reads, “Cowrote and advocated fiercely for an LGBTQ+ civil rights bill, only to watch gay groups cut trans rights from it.

"Fought her whole life for the gay rights movement to include trans people, especially homeless trans youth.”

Followed by a quote in all caps: “WE ALWAYS FELT THAT THE POLICE WERE THE REAL ENEMY.”]

Artist Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt was one of the homeless queer youth who started the riots. He wrote,

“We lived in cheap hotels, broken down apartments, abandoned buildings or on the streets. Home was where the heart is….“

[Image description: A handwritten piece, from 1989, by artist and Stonewall rioter Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt, called “1969: Mother Stonewall and the Golden Rats.”



This one’s long, y’all, so I’m going to link you to the transcription over here that @myqueertestimony​ kindly did.



I’m also gonna note that at the very very end, he provides a footnote saying that “queen” and “she” referred to guys, but they also referred to trans women and many many nonbinary people. Including “Nova” in his piece, who is the Zazu Nova you’ll meet below. Anyway, this part is especially relatable:]





“….Some were able to get menial jobs. Some of us were on welfare. Some of us hustled. And some of us pan-handled."



He described Stonewall as "a ghetto riot on home turf. We already had our war wounds. This was just another battle.”

[A picture of Marsha P. Johnson, handing out flyers, at the Gay Liberation Front protest against NYU for banning their dances.

Text reads, “Stonewall rioter who co-founded Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) with Sylvia Rivera. They worked to provide food, clothing, emotional support and a family for the street kids living on the docks and in STAR House.”

Followed by a quote in fuschia capital letters: “AS LONG AS MY PEOPLE DON’T HAVE THEIR RIGHTS ACROSS AMERICA, THERE’S NO REASON FOR CELEBRATION.”]

In the US, we have won the right to marry, to have sex, to work, to shop, to serve in the military, to be on TV.



We have the right to live in extreme poverty. On welfare. In prison. We have the right to struggle. To remain silent. To police brutality.

[A picture of Bubbles Rose Lee in a crowd of protesters marching against NYU. Her arms are linked with Sylvia Rivera’s and an unknown protester’s. (but quite likely a TWOC and STAR member.)

Text below says, “Survived starvation as a child. Helped start STAR and secured their first building so that they could safely house more street kids.

Had to flee the state when the Mafia landlord threatened to murder her because their rent was 3 months late.

Nothing more is known of her.”

Text down the right side, in all capitals, says, “THE OPPRESSION OF TRANSVESTITES OF EITHER SEX ARISES FROM SEXIST VALUES AND THIS OPPRESSION IS MANIFESTED BY HETEROSEXUALS AND HOMOSEXUALS OF BOTH SEXES IN THE FORM OF EXPLOITATION, RIDICULE, HARASSMENT, BEATINGS, RAPES, MURDERS.

"BECAUSE OF THIS OPPRESSION, THE MAJORITY OF TRANSVESTITES ARE FORCED INTO THE STREETS….

”-STAR MANIFESTO"]

The prison system, police brutality, treatment of homeless people, and criminalization of sex workers, have only gotten worse since Stonewall.



50% of SF’s historic trans district is poor, often homeless. Deaths among unhoused people there are up 4x this year.



(Not directly from COVID-19. The clinics, community centers, and other sources of support they had are all closed, or overwhelmed, and the city has done nothing to replace those resources. They’re dying from despair, from overdoses, from pre-existing conditions that get even less care than before.)

[A picture of Yvonne Ritter, stethoscope slung around her neck, hands on hips, grinning at the camera.

Text down one side says, “Yvonne, then known as Maria, was at the Stonewall to celebrate her 18th birthday when it was raided.

Where some people have changed the world and saved lives through direct action, she’s done it through compassion and support.

She became a nurse, working extensively with HIV+ patients, and volunteering as a trans peer counselor.

Like much of the community, her trauma and oppression led to self-medicating with drugs and alcohol. Like many who survived the 60s and70s, she got into recovery and helped others recover.

She’s currently 39 years clean and sober.”

The quote below reads, “Whoever we are, we deserve love and respect. LGBT or otherwise. People need to be compassionate, no matter who they are. No matter what part of the spectrum they come from, they need to be compassionate.

Just be grateful and thankful for who you are. Don’t try to be anything else than what you are.

- Yvonne Ritter, in a 2014 interview with Sang Bleu magazine”]

You can’t celebrate Pride w/o fighting these forces.



You can’t fight for ace-spec people w/o fighting for universal housing.



You can’t fight for aro-spec or polyamorous people w/o fighting for everyone to have the rights currently only granted by marriage.

[A picture of Antoinette Bebe Scarpinato at a microphone, quite probably singing or about to sing. Text down the side reads, “Bebe was a fierce STAR activist who participated in many actions and testified for civil rights bills.



She went on to become the first known trans woman principal, always fighting for alternative education options for abused and oppressed youth.In retirement, she volunteered heavily with Poppy’s Pop-Up Drag Brunches for the NO/AIDS Task Force. When she died in 2019, they called her a quintessential entertainer, and said, 'She loved people and the people loved her right back.’”



The quote below her picture says, “Transvestites and gay street people and all oppressed people should have free education, health care, clothing, food, transportation, and housing. –STAR Manifesto”]

You can’t fight for bi/pan+ people w/o fighting for universal basic income.



You can’t fight for trans people w/o fighting to end the police and prison systems.



You can’t fight for intersex people w/o fighting to abolish white colonialist concepts of gender.

[A picture of two TWOC, one enthusiastically raising a fist at the camera, the other waving, with the headline, “JUST OCCUPYING NYU, CREATING STAR”

Text to the right reads, “Nobody seems to know their names. They’re doing this in several pictures of this protest. They’re always near people we know were in STAR.

They could have been Stonewall rioters as well; Andorra Marks, or Bambi L'Amour, or one of many forgotten people out of thousands.”

The quote following it, in all caps, reads, “'ATHE IMMEDIATE END OF ALL POLICE HARASSMENT AND ARREST OF TRANSVESTITES AND GAY STREET PEOPLE, AND THE RELEASE OF TRANSVESTITES AND GAY STREET PEOPLE FROM ALL PRISONS AND ALL OTHER POLITICAL PRISONERS.’

– STAR MANIFESTO”]

Pride Month MUST center our most marginalized voices.

Because those are the people who have been doing this work for decades, and who know what we need to do next.



Pride MUST mean uniting to end poverty, policing, and the prison system.

[Zazu Nova, a tall Black TWOC in a head scarf, t-shirt tied into a crop top, sits on a table at a GLF meeting.

Text on the left says, “A poetic, outrageous, sweet, and passionate activist who helped create the peer-led queer youth movement that spread nationwide. Nova wrote and did outreach for the Gay Liberation Front and Gay Youth.

Nova was in the vanguard of the Stonewall riots: World Queerstory voted her most likely to have thrown the first brick.”

Bold red text on the right reads, “'The women [in the prison that this 1970 GLF march against police harassment targeted] shouted "Let Us Out.” We can’t do that yet, but someday…. One black brother was viciously beaten without apparent reason, and his blood stained the street. Various people smeared his blood on their faces to let the pigs know we would not forget…. Two cars were overturned. GAY RAGE, held back for too long, was breaking out all over.’

- Gay Flames, GLF 'bulletin of the homofire movement,’ Issue #1"]

Use #PrideNotPolicing to share information and organize!

1. Urge LGBTQIPA+ orgs to get involved in stopping the police brutality, prison-industrial complex, and poverty and homelessness, that disproportionately affect our community, and double-disproportionately affect LGBTQIPA+ people of color!

2. Find and boost info from the activists already doing this work!

3. Find, boost, and, whenever possible, donate to funds for people affected by these systems!

[A Black woman with cute glasses and a bright smile in a protest march. Caption reads, “Bambi L'Amour? Bambi was a Stonewall rioter and a founding member of STAR. This activist fits her description, and is with the right people, but we may never know.”

Below, text reads, “As Sylvia Rivera put it, ’…There had been several gay dances [at NYU], and all of a sudden the plug was pulled because the rich families were offended that queers and dykes were having dances and their impressionable children were going to be harmed. So we ended up taking that place over.’

Activists occupoied Weinstein Hall for three days. When the police finally cleared the building, only the determined 'street queens’ were left. STAR was born at that action.

'Bambi’ stood out to me because she looks like anybody I might know today.

When you read about these people who were at Stonewall, who helped create groundbreaking movements, remember this.

Remember, they were exactly like you. Remember, they were just showing up with some friends and playing it by ear.”]

We’ve fought for so long to keep abusive systems from affecting us.



They keep finding a way.



Until we fight for universal basic income, housing, and healthcare, and to abolish the police/prison system, a huge percentage of our community will keep suffering.

[Zazu Nova and Sylvia Rivera again. Description below their names reads, “Zazu is digging in her purse. Sylvia’s carrying a shopping bag in one hand, raising her free fist to greet Bebe Scarpi, in front of the STAR banner.

"It’s 1973. They’re marching just ahead of the Pride parade, because the march now bans 'drag queens’ for 'making gay people look bad.’

"Marsha and Sylvia have fought for years to make STAR House a reality. They’ve fed and housed street kids, and tried to create a bail fund and legal support. But the gay rights movement has used them and reviled them, and Sylvia is burning out.

"Decades later, some of her incredible vision will be realized by others, in the form of Transy House and Sylvia’s Place.

"The most important thing about pictures of these activists is that they remind us we’re just like them.

"They often don’t have a plan. They’re learning just by showing up. They’re living one hop beyond desperate poverty, but you can crash on their floor or in their bathtub. Maybe you dumpster dive some breakfast for everyone.

"This is activism. Surviving is activism. Dreaming of something better is activism. Showing up for each other, for ourselves, is activism. Speaking out for each other, for ourselves, is activism.”

The quote, in larger letters below the picture:

“We want a revolutionary peoples’ government, where transvestites, street people, women, homosexuals, blacks, puerto ricans, indians, & all oppressed people are free, & not fucked over by this government who treat us like the scum of the earth and kills us off like flies, one by one, and throws us in jail to rot. This government who spends millions of dollars to go to the moon, and lets the poor Americans starve to death.

- STAR Manifesto”]