Marsha P. Johnson
Pronouns: She/her
- This pioneer was a notable transgender rights activist and popular figure in New York City’s gay and art scene, as well as one of the city’s best known trans women of the times. She was a leader in clashes with the police amid the Stonewall Riots.
- She was a co-founder, along with Sylvia Rivera, of Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (S.T.A.R.) in the 1970s, and also the “mother” of S.T.A.R. House along with Sylvia, getting together food and clothing to help support the young trans women living in the house on the lower East Side of New York.
- Once, appearing in a court the judge asked Marsha, “What does the ‘P’ stand for?”, Johnson gave her customary response “Pay it No Mind.” This phrase became her trademark.
- In July 1992, her body was found floating in the Hudson River, shortly after the 1992 Pride March. Police ruled the death a suicide, but her friends and supporters denied this, and a people’s postering campaign later declared that Johnson had earlier been harassed near the spot where her body was found. Attempts to get the police to investigate the cause of death were unsuccessful.