Thank you, Marsha P Johnson, for throwing the shot glass heard around the world. Thank you for standing with your sisters in the Stonewall uprising. Thank you for telling a reporter at an early Gay Pride, ‘darling, I want my gay rights now’. Thank you for standing up to TERFs who didn’t want drag queens to march. Thank you for founding Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) with Sylvia Rivera to support queer homeless youth. Thank you for being a Hot Peach and proving that performance is activism. Thank you for never compromising in being you, for standing up to those who attacked you verbally and physically including being stabbed and shot. Thank you for showing us that our heroes can look like us and be like us, we can see ourselves in you as a genderqueer POC whose mental ill health journey is as vital a part of your narrative as your activism. Thank you Marsha for being part of our essential history and herstory.

Yesterday was the anniversary of Marsha’s death. She had marched in the parade and was later found dead in the Hudson. Although originally assumed a suicide because of her mental health, her death was the result of a hate crime. She had been harassed by a gang and one of them later bragged about killing her.

Marsha you are my hero. When I think of our liberation and LGBTQ+ pride I always think first about you.

Love.

(Art by me, Corinna Tomrley)