Marsha P. Johnson
Marsha P. Johnson was an American LGBTQ activist, sex worker, and performer. Sometimes known as the "Saint of Christopher Street", she is considered an important figure in the LGBTQ and transgender rights movements due to her involvement in the Stonewall riots, her work with Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries, and her advocacy for people with AIDS.
Born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Johnson wore women's clothing for the first time when she was five years old. After graduating from high school, she moved to Manhattan, where she regularly spent time on 42nd Street in Times Square, working at the local Childs Restaurants and supplementing her income through begging and sex work. Often going out in partial drag, she became well known for her vibrant accessories. She participated in the Stonewall riots in 1969, though her exact role is debated, and afterward, she was active in the Gay Activists Alliance and Gay Liberation Front. In 1970, she participated in the Weinstein Hall occupation and helped found STAR, which provided food and shelter for transgender youth through STAR House, a four-bedroom rental home in the East Village.
After STAR's dissolution in 1973, Johnson began performing with various theatrical troupes around Manhattan, including the Angels of Light and the Hot Peaches. After the beginning of the AIDS pandemic in New York in 1980, she cared for her friends who were dying of AIDS and engaged in AIDS-related activism. She disappeared under mysterious circumstances in 1992, with her body being found floating in the Hudson River on July 6. While police initially ruled her death a suicide, many speculate that she was either murdered, chased into the water, or fell in accidentally. She was 46.
After her death, Johnson became the subject of many tributes and memorials throughout the United States. She is the subject of several films, including the documentaries Pay It No Mind and The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson, as well as the short film Happy Birthday, Marsha! Because of her struggles with mental health, as well as her regular interaction with the medical and penal systems, some researchers analyze her life and contributions to the LGBTQ movement through the perspective of mad and disability studies.
Early life
Marsha P. Johnson was born Malcolm Michaels Jr. on August 24, 1945, in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Her mother, Alberta Claiborne, was a housekeeper from Elizabeth. Her father, Malcolm Michaels Sr, was a General Motors assembly line worker who relocated to neighboring Linden, New Jersey, from Virginia during the Second Great Migration. The two separated when Johnson was three years old, with her father returning to Linden to work at the GM plant there. While Johnson lived with her mother in Elizabeth, her father continued to have an active presence in her life. Elizabeth was both a segregated city and an early hub for civil rights activism when Johnson was young, with activists launching a campaign there to protest discrimination at the local Howard Johnson's hotel. She lived in a small house on Washington Avenue in central Elizabeth.Johnson wore women's clothing for the first time at five years old, against her mother's wishes and despite hostility from local children. In an interview near the end of her life, Johnson describes being raped by a 13-year-old boy during this period. She frequently saw film screenings at the local Little Theater, where she was inspired by actress Billie Burke. She also attended the Mount Teman African Methodist Episcopal Church, the oldest Black church in Elizabeth. Johnson was deeply religious, attending church every Sunday and performing onstage as part of the church's Christmas program. Her mother sometimes attended drag shows at Billy's Tavern, a local gay bar.
Johnson attended Edison High School in Elizabeth. She regularly participated in local parades and was the drum major for her school's marching band. In 1962, at the age of 17, she briefly enlisted in the United States Navy. She began receiving military recruit training in Chicago but was honorably discharged after she punched a man who tried to sexually assault her. That same year, she attended her first drag ball in New York City. Soon after, she began waiting tables hoping to raising money to move to Manhattan, finally doing so after graduating from high school.
Early years in New York
Johnson moved to New York in 1963, allegedly with "$15 and a bag of clothes". She regularly spent time on 42nd Street in Times Square. She began working at the Childs Restaurant there, supplementing her income by begging and through sex work, for which she was frequently arrested. It was in Times Square that she first met Sylvia Rivera, whom she took out to eat at Childs with money she had earned from begging. Activist Randy Wicker later recalled her as "the most generous person ever knew", noting an incident when she stole a loaf of bread to feed an unhoused person. She also met Agosto Machado, with whom she would regularly collaborate on artistic ventures. Lacking stable housing, she regularly slept in friends' apartments, hotels, adult movie theaters, and gay bathhouses.Johnson frequently went out in partial drag. Initially using the moniker "Black Marsha", she later adopted the name Marsha P. Johnson. According to Tourmaline, the name "Marsha" was a reanalysis derived from a nickname of hers, "Mikey". The name "Johnson" was derived from the Howard Johnson's Hotel in Elizabeth. When asked about the meaning of the middle initial "P", Johnson gave various answers. At times, she said that it stood for "pay it no mind", particularly when questioned about her gender. However, she eventually said to Village Voice reporter Steve Watson, a close friend, that it stood for "Piola". Johnson regularly incorporated dresses, high heels, robes, stockings, and wigs into her presentation. While she lacked the financial resources to afford the expensive outfits associated with "high drag", she frequently supplemented her appearance with vibrant improvised accessories such as artificial fruits, Christmas lights, and crowns made from discarded flowers. In a 1970 interview with journalist Liza Cowan, Johnson says that she was wearing women's clothing "full-time" by 1969. At some point, she began undergoing feminizing hormone therapy, saying that "when became a drag queen, started to live life as a woman". In the Cowan interview, she said that her goal was to eventually obtain gender-affirming surgery.
Stonewall riots
Various accounts exist of Johnson's participation in the Stonewall riots. The riots, which took place at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, were provoked by a police raid and the attempted arrests of several patrons, including cross-dressers and sex workers. Johnson claims to have been one of the first drag queens to frequent the Stonewall, an account corroborated by independent scholars Monica Keller and Jessica Morris. However, Tourmaline notes that Johnson and her associates were frequently denied entry, often opting to spend their time at Sheridan Square across the street instead.According to historian Martin Duberman, "rumor has it" that Johnson, upset by several "no-shows" at a party she had organized, went to the Stonewall on June 27, 1969, to dance. Johnson remembers it being a birthday party and claimed in a later interview that she remembers the riots as having happened in August, around the time of her birthday. The raids actually began early in the early hours of the morning on June 28.
According to writer David Carter, activist Robin Souza reported that after the raids started, fellow Stonewall veterans such as Morty Manford and Marty Robinson witnessed Johnson throw a shot glass at a mirror, screaming, "I got my civil rights!" Members of the Gay Activists Alliance later considered this the "shot glass that was heard around the world". Carter notes inconsistencies with this account, observing that in official testimonies given by Manford, he did not mention Johnson. Carter speculates that this may have been an attempt by Manford to censor himself, fearing that crediting Johnson, a mentally ill and transgender person, with the riots would reflect poorly on the gay liberation movement. Carter identifies Johnson as having been "almost indubitably among the first to be violent that night and may possibly even have been the first". Playwright Robert Heide remembers that as the riots were beginning, Johnson shouted at police and threw rocks at them. Johnson herself claims that she did not arrive at the scene of the riots until 2:00a.m, after they had already started. Historian Marc Stein claims that while she "definitely participated in subsequent developments", it is unlikely that Johnson was present at the beginning of the riots. Mama Jean Devente, a friend of Johnson's, remembers Johnson helping her tend to her wounds after she was beaten by police. Activist Craig Rodwell says that at some point during the second night, Johnson climbed on top of a lamppost and dropped a bag containing a heavy object onto a police car's windshield, destroying it.
Stein notes several dimensions to the debates about Johnson's participation at Stonewall. One dimension concerns recognition, with some arguing that proper credit should be accorded to individuals who played an important role in the riots and others arguing that discussions about credits are ahistorical and pertain primarily to modern debates about identity politics rather than the riots themselves. Another dimension concerns the role of structural factors in the riots, with some arguing that the emphasis on individual agency is overstated relative to these "social and structural factors". Amidst these debates, Stein notes that it is "challenging to avoid both minimization and exaggeration".
While researchers Florence Ashley and Sam Sanchinel argue that Johnson was likely not one of the primary instigators of the riots, they say transgender people claim she was present as a way of placing themselves within the broader LGBTQ coalition and of signaling the radical nature of the transgender rights movement. However, they also argue that the mainstream transgender movement uses Johnson's history at Stonewall opportunistically, overlooking her class, race, mental health, and position as a sex worker when convenient.
Tourmaline argues that inconsistencies in Johnson's story "offer another way of remembering—one in which one’s emotional memory takes over the facts". She also notes that Johnson periodically became confused and frustrated when asked too many questions about Stonewall, speculating that this may have been the result of trauma and arguing that Johnson's "incoherence" should be respected.