Story by Bella Wexler, photograph Via Empire State Plaza and New York State Capitol

On a sunny day at Washington Square Park in 1973, Sylvia Rivera fought her way to a microphone. This transgender woman of color had spent her life fighting for the Gay Rights movement, yet was heckled and booed off the stage by a crowd composed of gay and lesbian individuals fighting for the same cause. The predominantly white and cisgender members of this crowd were still reluctant to acknowledge the driving roles that predominantly non-white, transgender communities played in Pride.

Growing up, Sylvia Rivera lived with her grandmother until she ran away from home at the age of eleven. Sylvia was motivated to run away after having been suspended from school. This suspension came as a result of another student attacking her for wearing makeup despite being assigned male at birth.

In her adolescence, Rivera faced sexual exploitation and homelessness. In 1963, she met Marsha P. Johnson, a black drag queen who served as a mother figure for Sylvia and shared in her frustrations at transgender exclusion from the Gay Rights movement. Together, the two fought back against police at the famous Stonewall uprising, and 17-year-old Rivera went on to lead numerous protests, get arrested despite resisting, and co-found the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) with Marsha. STAR served as a safehaven for struggling members of the transgender community and a space to discuss and rally for trans rights. Rivera played a major role in fighting for transgender people to be included New York’s Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act that would finally be enacted in 2002, the year of Rivera’s death. As someone who lost her job, housing, and livelihood in order to fight for both gay and transgender rights, this legislation and the broader end to transgender exclusion from the Gay Rights movement was deeply personal for Sylvia Rivera. So, she fought through every heckling crowd she could to make sure her story was heard.

When glancing at photographs of the Stonewall Riots, it is easy to marvel at the diversity in race and gender expression represented by the queer bar-goers rebelling against a straight, white, and cisgender police force. After all, systemic, culturally perpetuated traumas and discrimination united LGBTQ+ people from all walks of life under the same acronym and intersectional community. Yet, the Gay Pride movement that the Stonewall Riots famously sparked wasn’t always as inclusive as its rainbow flag might suggest. Arguably one of the most iconic historical figures who could attest to this fact was Sylvia Rivera. Therefore, when celebrating this June, it is important to recognize that LGBTQ Pride would not just be incomplete without transgender activists of color like Sylvia, but that it could never have been possible in the first place.