Author: GL

The BOYS will be BOYS newsletter was an Australian-based publication for trans men, started in 1992. It served to connect transmasculine people both to share stories and to provide information about socially and physically transitioning that they might not be able to find elsewhere. This stuck out to me because it’s similar to current day blogs and forums used for the same purpose and sheds a light on what communication was for queer people before the internet.

The part of the film Major! that left the biggest impression on me was the treatment of trans women in prison. I knew that conditions in prisons in the US are quite poor and inmates are continually taken advantage of, and I was also aware that trans prisoners are usually treated worse, but the stories of former inmates opened a whole new level of horrific. One of the biggest issues is solitary confinement. Often, trans inmates are placed in solitary confinement “for their own protection.” In reality, they are put there so prison staff don’t have to deal with them. People are often in solitary confinement for months, even though the UN considers solitary confinement for more than a few days to be torture. Although solitary confinement and violence affect all prisoners in the US, trans women are disproportionately affected by the mistreatment.

The film, which focuses on trans women of color, leaves me wondering what sort of organization and activism there is for trans men of color. Although the focus on trans women is extremely important – trans women are one of the groups most prone to violence and homicide – I’m curious what sort of support there is for trans men of color, who are also disproportionately affected by violence.

The interest of this poster lies in its timeless message. The text encourages parents to talk to their children about AIDS, saying that education about the HIV virus “has got to start at home”. I couldn’t seem to find a date of publication for this poster, but pressure on parents to give their children good sex ed has been on for quite a while because schools often don’t do an adequate job educating teens on safer sex practices. This speaks to the general taboo on discussion around sex that has hindered cishet and queer communities alike in the shared goal to eradicate or control STDs like AIDS.

Poster available via AIDS Education Posters collection at http://aep.lib.rochester.edu/node/40820.

In the January 1975 edition of New Women’s Times, Barbara Britton published an article titled “Why I Am Angry.” It talks about Barbara’s experience with pushback from the administration of S.U.C (SUNY) Geneseo for writing an article in the campus newspaper about discrimination and hate crimes against LGBTQ people in the community. Originally, she had been summoned to the Dean’s office on the pretense of housing agreement infringements, but the conversation evolved into reprimands for her writing. The article starts with “Perhaps constant conflict from working in the Lesbian movement is trying to decide whether events against you are coincidental or whether the nature of the event is grounds for paranoia.” This specific quote stood out to me because it is something that queer people ask themselves every day. Is a perceived microaggression actually hostile, or is the perpetrator just uneducated? This piece might be important to include in an exhibit for two reasons. First, attention could be brought to the timelessness of that first sentence to show that, although progress has been made in the intervening four decades, some things are still the same. Also, the document has historic value by providing a snapshot of how gay people were treated in rural New York in the 1970’s.

Recently, an acquaintance of mine, an Asian American woman, tried to apply for a business internship at Morgan Stanley. The program is specifically for minorities, so one would think it would be very inclusive. However, she soon realized that the internship was not for Asian Americans. This might not have been such an issue had the internship not included practically every other racial minority, as well as LGBTQ people. This is frustrating to me because even something aimed specifically at minorities left out a very large portion of the minority population in the United States. They may have some logic for failing to include Asian as a category, but without justification it seems like a mistake or even intentional discrimination. I would like to see more care when creating minority programming, whether that be not letting careless slips like this through, or justifying them if they aren’t slips.

The Stonewall riots are somewhat well known, especially among the queer community, as the beginning of the gay rights movement. In brief, the riots started when years of police harassment and oppression got to be too much. One sultry June night in 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gathering place for LGBTQ people, for the second time that week. Angry patrons attacked the police. The word spread, and queer people and allies gathered again the following night. Despite its reputation of starting the gay rights movement, the Stonewall riots were not the first time the LGBTQ+ community rose up against police violence. Thus, perhaps the most notable aspect of the Stonewall riots is that they are notable. Through a combination of media coverage and influential people caring about remember the event, Stonewall was made the first memorable resistance of queer people against oppression. Ultimately, the memorability of Stonewall proved invaluable because it gave activists something to rally around. It is much easier to hold protests in remembrance of an event than to simply protest on an arbitrary date

In a discussion of notability and Stonewall  it is irresponsible to leave out the transgender women and drag queens of color responsible for being the first to resist. Sylvia Rivera was one of those people. Before this readings, I simply knew she was a trans woman of color who played an enormous part in the Stonewall riots. Now, I know she was born to Hispanic parents in 1951. Orphaned at the age of 3, she was raised by her Venezuelan grandmother, who was less than happy to have a child to look after, let alone such an effeminate “boy”. In fourth grade, Sylvia began routinely wore makeup to school. Her grandmother disapproved, and at the age of 10 the Sylvia became a homeless youth.

Fortunately, the drag queens, trans women, prostitutes, and other “undesirable” people in New York City had banded together for quite some time and she was quickly taken in as one of their own. Even at this young age, she began “working the streets” as a prostitute. As she got older, she took on the role others had taken when she had first been cast out and began caring for the queer homeless youth of the Big Apple. Her and other queens rented out hotel rooms and eventually an apartment to provide shelter to the young people and worked as prostitutes to feed and house the children. When compounded with food stolen by the young inhabitants of the home, nobody ever went hungry. She was only 18 when the Stonewall riots happened. After being shoved around by the police all her life, she had had enough. Those nights in June 1969 she finally acted on all the anger inside her.

People don’t talk much about Sylvia’s life after Stonewall, but it is certainly not for lack of material. In and out of jail for minor offenses, she continued caring for homeless LGBTQ+ youth with her friend Marsha P. Johnson, another trans woman. Her activism didn’t end with the riots either. Beyond the subtle protest of caring for people who had been deemed undesirable, she was very vocal not only for the rights of gay people, but about how the trans community – which the gay community had to thank for helping jump start the gay rights movement – was repeatedly left out of discussion about rights for LGBTQ+ people (a narrative which still rings true today). On February 19, 2002, she died of complications from liver cancer at the age of 50, ending the inspiring story of one of the most influential leaders of the gay rights movement.