Bitch on Wheels, (2001 June) New York, NY

Context

Sylvia Rivera, a Venezuelan and Puerto Rican drag queen, is remembered as a prominent trans activist of color in LGBTQ+ history and one of the great heroes of the Stonewall Uprising.1 She was born in the Bronx, New York, in 1951. Rivera’s father left the family when she was a young child and her mother died at age three, which left Rivera in her grandmother’s care. Rivera’s grandmother abused her because she was too “effeminate for a boy” and started wearing makeup in the fourth grade. She also disfavored Rivera because her father’s Puerto Rican heritage gave her a darker complexion than the rest of the family. Rivera stated that her grandmother wanted her to be white and that she “grew up without love.”2 After facing physical violence from her grandmother and her classmates, Rivera left home at age ten. She found a community on 42nd Street, where she was “adopted” by a group of drag queens.3 Shortly after her move, Rivera met Marsha P. Johnson, a Black, trans woman who was “like a mother” to her and together, they worked for trans rights and to end homelessness for trans youth.4

At age 17, Rivera made history by throwing the “second stone” at the Stonewall Uprising in 1969. Located in Greenwich Village in Lower Manhattan, the Stonewall Inn was, in Rivera’s words, a “white male bar for middle-class males to pick up young boys of different races.”5 The police frequently raided Stonewall, but on June 28, 1969, the community fought back against police violence. Although some historians believed Rivera threw the “first stone” at police that started the uprising, she explains that she threw the second Molotov cocktail.6 This event became known as the Stonewall Uprising or the Stonewall Riots and is said to have ignited the contemporary LGBTQ+ movement for equality. Importantly, the uprising was led by street queens—mostly drag queens and transgender women of color—and has been broadly remembered as an act of “gay resistance.” Remembering Stonewall as a “gay” event belittled and ignored the raced, classed, and gendered hierarchies at the heart of LGBTQ+ inequities. Despite the fact that she spoke out against numerous gay organizations throughout her life, Rivera is considered one of the leaders of the gay rights movement, and was even dubbed the “mother of all gay people” at WorldPride in 2000.7 She felt discriminated by many gay people and despised the fact that gay organizations often sold trans rights “down the river” when advocating for gay liberation.8

Rivera was one of the first (and most vocal) people to call out transgender exclusion in mainstream gay movements. In June 2001, Rivera delivered her “Bitch on Wheels” speech at the Latino Gay Men of New York’s (LGMNY) “First Friday of the Month” event. In this speech, Rivera disparaged gay rights organizations and leaders who ignored transgender issues or blatantly worked against them. This event was meant to commemorate the beginning of Pride Month (June) and the anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising.9 Rivera stated that while most gay organizations were fighting for heteronormative rights like marriage, she cared more about the high rates of homelessness for transgender youth. Her priorities were shown through her work with the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), a group dedicated to providing housing for transgender youth that Rivera created with Johnson in 1971.10 Through this work, Rivera considered herself a “mother” to many queer and trans youth who needed a safe space to live.11 A few years later, Rivera decided to leave activism after she was denied the opportunity to speak at a 1973 Pride event at Washington Square Park because of her gender identity. She explained that lesbians felt trans women and drag queens were “an embarrassment to women,” and because of this, trans women were “pushed out of something [they] helped create.” Rivera returned to activism after David Isay approached her about making the first documentary on Stonewall, Remembering Stonewall, to commemorate the event’s 20th anniversary.12

Rivera is credited as one of the “most important” and “most controversial” historical leaders for trans rights. In “Bitch on Wheels,” Rivera recalls times where she was arrested for her activism. She recounts physical violence, public arguments with prominent gay rights leaders, and emotional turmoil from being barred from many events and buildings.13 In fact, Rivera was only allowed to deliver “Bitch on Wheels” because the LGMNY’s monthly meeting had been moved due to building renovations; Rivera was barred from entering the main building on 13th Street and they had to secure a special permit for her to speak at the temporary location near Gansevoort Street.14 Through her long history as an activist, Rivera’s reputation transformed from an “an alcohol- and drug-consuming homeless rabble-rouser and firebrand” to a “national symbol in the U.S.” for LGBTQ+ rights.15 Rivera passed away from liver cancer at age 52 in February 2002. Her lifelong partner, Julia Murray, was by her side.16 In true Rivera fashion, she was working for transgender inclusion into the mainstream gay rights group, Empire State Pride Agenda, on her death bed.17

In memory, the intersection of Christopher and Hudson, which is two blocks from the historic Stonewall Inn in New York, was renamed “Sylvia Rivera Way.” In addition, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project continues her legacy by providing legal aid to people of low-income, people of color, and/or those who are intersex, transgender, or gender non-conforming.18 And in 2015, Rivera was recognized as the first transgender person featured at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.19 Rivera was a pioneer for transgender rights in America, which makes her work and words even more important in our contemporary political climate where LGBTQ+ rights are under assault by state and federal governments.20

Endnotes

  1. Rivera preferred to be known as “Sylvia” rather than by specific gender labels. She did, however, refer to herself as a “drag queen” and a “street queen” throughout most of her life. She started using she/her pronouns at a young age. Rivera was considered a “transgender woman” starting in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but mostly by other people. She herself said, “I’m tired of living with labels. I just want to be who I am. I am Sylvia Rivera.” See: Sylvia Rivera, “Queens in Exile: The Forgotten Ones,” Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries: Survival, Revolt, and Queer Antagonist Struggle (Untorelli Press, 2013), 48; Untorelli Press is an online publication that does not disclose its location.
  2. Rivera, “Queens in Exile,” 40.
  3. Rivera, “Queens in Exile,” 43-44.
  4. Emma Rothberg, “Sylvia Rivera (1951-2002),” National Women’s History Museum, March 2021, https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/sylvia-rivera.
  5. Rivera qtd. in Jessi Gan, ‘“Still at the Back of the Bus’: Sylvia Rivera’s Struggle,” CENTRO Journal 19, no. 1 (2007): 131.
  6. A Molotov cocktail is a hand-thrown weapon that consists of a container filled with flammable substances. Commonly, the cocktail is a breakable bottle lit on fire that when thrown, can create a large flame. It is also known as an improvised, incendiary fire bomb.
  7. “Heroes of Stonewall: Sylvia Rivera,” World Queerstory, June 12, 2019, https://worldqueerstory.org/2019/06/12/sylvia-rivera/.
  8. Gan, ‘“Still at the Back of the Bus,’” 136.
  9. Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes, “Introduction to Sylvia Rivera’s Talk at LGMNY, June 2001, Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center, New York City,” CENTRO Journal 19, no. 1 (2007): 117.
  10. Rivera changed the “T” in STAR to stand for “transgender” (instead of “transvestite”) in 2001 in attempts to revive STAR as a political organization.
  11. Rivera, “Queens in Exile,” 44.
  12. Rivera, “Queens in Exile,” 53.
  13. Sylvia Rivera, “Bitch on Wheels,” para. 11, 16.
  14. La Fountain-Stokes, “Introduction to Sylvia Rivera’s Talk,” 117.
  15. Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes, Translocas: The Politics of Puerto Rican Drag and Trans Performance (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2021), 11.
  16. Rivera stated that she disliked gender and sexuality labels because her relationship with Julia Murray, another transgender woman, made definitions complicated. Rivera also stated that she was not a lesbian and when people called her one, they were trying to make her fit into the “straight world.” See: Rivera, “Queens in Exile,” 48.
  17. “Heroes of Stonewall: Sylvia Rivera.”
  18. Sylvia Rivera Law Project,” SRLP, 2022, https://srlp.org/.
  19. Trudy Ring, “Sylvia Rivera Gets a Place in the National Portrait Gallery,” The Advocate, October 27, 2015, https://www.advocate.com/transgender/2015/10/27/sylvia-rivera-gets-place-national-portrait-gallery.
  20. “Efforts to Restrict Rights for LGBTQ Youth,” NPR, 2022, https://www.npr.org/series/1085513404/trans-rights-lgbtq-youth.