It’s Pride Month!: Remembering Marsha “Pay It No Mind” Johnson
Charlotte Cheung, 17
In honor of pride month, I created this pink and purple colored pencil drawing of Marsha P. Johnson. I only first learned about her through someone’s post on Instagram earlier this June, and I wanted to do some more research. Since then, I’ve become one of her many admirers and I want to spread more information about who she was!
The Stonewall Riots
Often credited with starting the historic 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York City, Johnson was an activist for LGBTQ rights and a beloved icon. She variably identified as gay, a transvestite, or a (drag) queen, and used the pronouns she/her (she did not identify as transgender—the term was not widely used at the time).
The riots began as a response to a police raid of the Stonewall Inn, known as a gay bar and safe haven for LGBTQ individuals. The officers roughly arrested patrons and employees as they searched for bootlegged alcohol and violators of a New York law that prohibited individuals from wearing clothes that were not “gender-appropriate.” That morning was a breaking point—harassment by the NYPD of gay and transgender individuals was not new. Legend says that Johnson threw the ”shot glass heard round the world,” although she said that the riots had already started when she showed up.
Momentum from that first day of riots carried into the next five. The event is considered a milestone in the national and international gay liberation movement, which occurred exactly 51 years ago in 1969. On June 28th, 1970, the first anniversary of the riots, the first ever pride parade started on the street outside of the inn. Today, it’s a National Historic Landmark.
Who was Marsha?
Those who knew Johnson adored her for her inspiring personality and contributions to the movement. Along with Sylvia Rivera, a Latinx-American transgender rights activist, she co-created the first organization in the U.S. whose leaders were transgender women of color. Not only was she a prominent LGBTQ rights activist, but she also advocated for sex workers (especially transgender sex workers who had to resort to this work due to employment discrimination), prisoners, and people with AIDS/HIV.
There are so many cool facts about Marsha P. Johnson that I love. She once said that her middle initial stands for “pay it no mind” in regards to her gender. She sang in a group called the Hot Peaches and was photographed by Andy Warhol. According to the Netflix documentary “The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson,” she would give flowers to strangers. If you complimented a piece of clothing she was wearing, she would let you have it.
What most don’t know . . .
Her spirit of generosity is often her most celebrated aspect, but some do not realize and/or recognize that she did not have reliable housing and battled mental illness. Nor do most people discuss how she was found dead in the Hudson River in 1994. Her death was ruled a suicide, but her close friends do not think this is plausible. Additionally, witnesses claimed that she was harassed earlier that day. The police were reluctant to put resources towards investigating her case with reasoning that referred to her identity as a black transgender woman. The case was closed. Only in 2012 was the case reopened, but it remains unsolved.
“We are all brothers and sisters and human beings”
Even though Marsha P. Johnson is a symbol of hope in the eyes of many, she is also an example of the failures by society in how it treats gender non-conforming individuals, especially black transgender women.
Here are some words of wisdom about fighting for change from the trailblazer herself: “How many years has it taken people to realize that we are all brothers and sisters and human beings in the human race? I mean how many years does it take people to see that? We’re all in this rat race together!” – Marsha P. Johnson
