Pride Spotlight: SYLVIA RIVERA (1951-2002)

A veteran of the 1969 Stonewall Inn uprising, Sylvia Rivera was a tireless advocate for those silenced and disregarded by larger movements. Throughout her life, she fought against the exclusion of transgender people, especially transgender people of color, from the larger movement for gay rights.

Activism was clearly her passion as Rivera resisted arrest and subsequently led a series of protests against the raid. Yet this was not the first time Rivera was directly involved in activism. She said in a 1989 interview that, “Before gay rights, before the Stonewall, I was involved in the Black Liberation Movement, the peace movement...I felt I had the time and I knew that I had to do something. My revolutionary blood was going back then. I was involved with that.”

Throughout the 1970s, she frequently tangled with gay rights leaders who were hesitant to include transgender people in their advocacy work. The Gay Activist Alliance (GAA), which formed in response to Stonewall, frequently rejected the role transgender people—the majority of whom were people of color—had played in the uprising. In fact, there’s an iconic video of Rivera speaking her mind to members of her own community as they booed her during a Gay Pride Rally in 1973. Rivera fought against the exclusion of transgender people from the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act in New York. The final bill passed in 2002 and prevents discrimination “on the basis of actual or perceived sexual orientation in employment, housing, public accommodations, education, credit, and the exercise of civil rights.”

You can learn more about Sylvia Rivera and her legacy from the National Women’s History Museum website.