Transsexual702
11-19-2005, 03:16 PM
NEW YORK HONORS TRANSGENDER ICON
New York City renamed a street corner in Greenwich Village on Thursday after Stonewall veteran and transgender activist Sylvia Rivera. The event coincided with the annual Day of Remembrance, a day the transgender community remembers its dead.
The seventh annual Day of Remembrance will also be commemorated in cities around the world on Sunday.
Rivera was one of the first protesters to throw a bottle at the police as they raided the Stonewall Inn bar on June 28, 1969. She understood the significance of the moment, calling it a "turning point" for LGBT rights.
The next year, Rivera joined the Gay Activists Alliance in an effort to pass a gay rights bill in New York City -- going as so far as to crash a meeting on the bill by scaling City Hall walls in a dress and high heels.
But later it was the mainstream gay culture that made her feel like she was crashing the party.
Activists dropped transgender rights from the proposed city gay rights bill in an effort to make it more acceptable. "When things started getting more mainstream," Sylvia told Michael Musto in a 1995 interview, "it was like, 'We don't need you no more.'"
Although frequently homeless, Rivera co-founded Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) with Marsha P. Johnson, to provide temporary housing for others in the transgender community.
Rivera died on Feb. 19, 2002.
Riki Wilchins, executive director of the Gender Public Advocacy Coalition (GPAC), described Rivera's final moments in an article for the Village Voice.
"She was hooked up to monitors, IVs, and a morphine pump last Sunday when local gay leaders stopped by the intensive care unit to ask her advice. Mortally ill, she held back the night long enough to give them hell one last time for not being inclusive enough. She died only hours later, at just 50 years old: a unique lady for a unique time."
Melissa Sklarz, co-chair for the LGBT Committee of Community Board #2, said she acted on a friend's suggestion to name the street corner after the transgender icon.
"In the past we did very somber events," Sklarz recalled. "But we wanted to start celebrating our lives rather than mourning our dead."
Gwen Smith, who started the Day of Remembrance after the unsolved Nov. 1998 murder of Rita Hester in Boston, said of the street naming, "I can't think of anyone who is more deserving. Her and Marsha P. Johnson were really the mothers of the modern trans rights movement."
Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE), said Rivera is the first out transgender person to have a street named after her. "I think it's a wonderfully marvelous gesture."
Sklarz added the naming of the northeast corner of Christopher and Hudson streets after Rivera also had a political message worthy of its namesake.
"Right now we're having trouble with the community in Greenwich Village as the residents protest the LGBT people who hang out there as destructive to their way of life," Sklarz said. "We thought naming this corner after this iconic figure who once prowled here would remind everyone of the neighborhood's history."
New York City renamed a street corner in Greenwich Village on Thursday after Stonewall veteran and transgender activist Sylvia Rivera. The event coincided with the annual Day of Remembrance, a day the transgender community remembers its dead.
The seventh annual Day of Remembrance will also be commemorated in cities around the world on Sunday.
Rivera was one of the first protesters to throw a bottle at the police as they raided the Stonewall Inn bar on June 28, 1969. She understood the significance of the moment, calling it a "turning point" for LGBT rights.
The next year, Rivera joined the Gay Activists Alliance in an effort to pass a gay rights bill in New York City -- going as so far as to crash a meeting on the bill by scaling City Hall walls in a dress and high heels.
But later it was the mainstream gay culture that made her feel like she was crashing the party.
Activists dropped transgender rights from the proposed city gay rights bill in an effort to make it more acceptable. "When things started getting more mainstream," Sylvia told Michael Musto in a 1995 interview, "it was like, 'We don't need you no more.'"
Although frequently homeless, Rivera co-founded Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) with Marsha P. Johnson, to provide temporary housing for others in the transgender community.
Rivera died on Feb. 19, 2002.
Riki Wilchins, executive director of the Gender Public Advocacy Coalition (GPAC), described Rivera's final moments in an article for the Village Voice.
"She was hooked up to monitors, IVs, and a morphine pump last Sunday when local gay leaders stopped by the intensive care unit to ask her advice. Mortally ill, she held back the night long enough to give them hell one last time for not being inclusive enough. She died only hours later, at just 50 years old: a unique lady for a unique time."
Melissa Sklarz, co-chair for the LGBT Committee of Community Board #2, said she acted on a friend's suggestion to name the street corner after the transgender icon.
"In the past we did very somber events," Sklarz recalled. "But we wanted to start celebrating our lives rather than mourning our dead."
Gwen Smith, who started the Day of Remembrance after the unsolved Nov. 1998 murder of Rita Hester in Boston, said of the street naming, "I can't think of anyone who is more deserving. Her and Marsha P. Johnson were really the mothers of the modern trans rights movement."
Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE), said Rivera is the first out transgender person to have a street named after her. "I think it's a wonderfully marvelous gesture."
Sklarz added the naming of the northeast corner of Christopher and Hudson streets after Rivera also had a political message worthy of its namesake.
"Right now we're having trouble with the community in Greenwich Village as the residents protest the LGBT people who hang out there as destructive to their way of life," Sklarz said. "We thought naming this corner after this iconic figure who once prowled here would remind everyone of the neighborhood's history."