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THREAD: You may have heard that the Stonewall riots & the LGBT rights movement began with a trans woman of color named Marsha P. Johnson—a claim that has been all but accepted as fact.
It's a great story. The problem is that it isn't true.
My latest: https://reason.com/2020/06/30/marsha-p-johnson-didnt-start-stonewall-pride-might-not-have-been-trans
It's a great story. The problem is that it isn't true.
My latest: https://reason.com/2020/06/30/marsha-p-johnson-didnt-start-stonewall-pride-might-not-have-been-trans
By her own admission, Johnson wasn’t there when the Stonewall riots broke out. But the idea that she led the charge has been repeated over and over in the national media, including the @nytimes.
(They later issued a correction, but these false claims are commonplace.)
(They later issued a correction, but these false claims are commonplace.)
Perhaps even more complicated is the fact that it’s not at all clear Johnson was trans. She never referred to herself as such, but self-identified as “gay,” a “drag queen,” & a “transvestite.”
She wore men’s and women’s clothing. She used both pronouns.
She wore men’s and women’s clothing. She used both pronouns.
In some sense, it shouldn’t matter how Johnson identified. But those communities aren't the same, and treating them as such trivializes and misappropriates the unique struggles they face.
The mistruths around Johnson are clearly motivated by intersectionality. It’s a well-intentioned concept built around the notion that we should look out for society's most vulnerable.
It can also end up encouraging activists to prioritize identity at the expense of the truth.
It can also end up encouraging activists to prioritize identity at the expense of the truth.
...Which is exactly what’s happened here. No one is more intersectional than a “trans woman of color.” No one is better for the cause or for the current narrative.
The truth here isn’t so simple, and changing it robs us of the opportunity to learn from it. As @jkirchick told me, bars like Stonewall were vicious toward drag queens and transgender folks. They were also outwardly racist.
In other words, those like Johnson were often rejected by the community they wanted to join. Members of that same community have now co-opted and reimagined Johnson for their own purposes.
You could definitely say Johnson was one step ahead of her peers. But that was because she understood what it was like not to have a seat at the table, much less to be at the head of it.
@sullydish writes that some protesters had "much more to lose." It's sad, but true.
@sullydish writes that some protesters had "much more to lose." It's sad, but true.
Ironically, the left has often led the fight against historical revisionism. Consider Confederate monuments: liberals have rightly resisted false portrayals of how those statues came to be. Changing the narrative, they say, is to erase a savage history of human suffering.
I would agree. But it’s for that reason that the left’s own attempts at revisionism are equally dubious. You don’t get to rewrite history—even when you wholeheartedly believe you're on the right side of it. /end
