Latest / Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood / 198. The Life and Death Of Marsha P Johnson

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198. The Life and Death Of Marsha P Johnson · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

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Speaker 1: Hello, delicious friends, and welcome to Who Read What Now?
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Speaker 1: The history podcast that is not your history class with
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Speaker 1: me your host Katie Charlwood, history Harlotte and reader of books.
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Speaker 1: And be glad, delicious friends, that I'm actually recording this
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Speaker 1: podcast and not hiding any bathtub full of ice, you know,
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Speaker 1: because of heat reasons, not because of you know, people
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Speaker 1: stealing my liver reasons. So yeah, see, because there's a
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Speaker 1: heat wave here. Frankly, I am too pale and too
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Speaker 1: soft for this weather, right And yes, before you start
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Speaker 1: bumping your gums at me, and no other places are hotter, Okay,
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Speaker 1: I understand there are all these things, and things are
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Speaker 1: in place. We are implementing things to try and cool
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Speaker 1: the planet, right, not just my abode, but just getting
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Speaker 1: icy is so much more complicated than just getting ac
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Speaker 1: and also trying to put an ac in a small
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Speaker 1: house with no storage as is, Like I my house
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Speaker 1: is covered in books. I currently recorded my kitchen table
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Speaker 1: because there are boxes of lego in my kid's bedroom
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Speaker 1: because it needs to be done. There is so much
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Speaker 1: that needs to be done to make this house livable.
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Speaker 1: And and I have antique fundatil that is not mine,
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Speaker 1: but I can't get rid of and there is no
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Speaker 1: space for me to put an ac unit in, like
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Speaker 1: it's not it's not a thing. And yeah, yeah, apart
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Speaker 1: from the fact that it's tough enough to get one
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Speaker 1: in here as it is in temperatures that typically go
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Speaker 1: from chili to absolutely Baltic, it's not exactly an ideal solution.
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Speaker 1: I have, however, not just myself, three fans with mysters.
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Speaker 1: So I've got these weird chilpill fans, right, and that's
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Speaker 1: mainly for the kids, you know, so they can put
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Speaker 1: it in a room they're in. And also I've got
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Speaker 1: like a proper we desk fan thing which also it's
2:15
Speaker 1: by Shark, also has the mister. So I'm hoping it's
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Speaker 1: going to be like decent because I'm trying to not
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Speaker 1: have like cold you're blown directly at my face because
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Speaker 1: probably that's really bad and as I'm sure you can
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Speaker 1: hear from my voice, it still hasn't fully fully come back. Now, Okay, yes,
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Speaker 1: I'm feeling pretty good that I pre ordered these fans
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Speaker 1: that were so like yay me partially organized. Also, a
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Speaker 1: friend of mine who was originally from Florida gave me
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Speaker 1: like really good advice during the last time way to
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Speaker 1: heat wave and so I'm I'm I'm prepared in some ways,
2:51
Speaker 1: which is which is good, which is good. Now it's
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Speaker 1: also really nice to see how, like how the US
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Speaker 1: has really embraced the Tartan army. And as someone who
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Speaker 1: is half Irish half Scottish, right, this bodes well for me.
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Speaker 1: I'm like, great, I've got the accent you like, and
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Speaker 1: I wear a lot of Tartan. Now that's a little
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Speaker 1: bit handier for me. And there's this whole thing about
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Speaker 1: how they're not going to like touristay places, They're going
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Speaker 1: to like seven elevens and Costco and stuff. And I
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Speaker 1: love Costco. Okay, I love Costco. I got taken to
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Speaker 1: a Costco when I was over there the last time.
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Speaker 1: It was like, do you want to go to the Costco?
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Speaker 1: And I had said yes before the end of the sentence,
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Speaker 1: but the food court was down, so I don't know
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Speaker 1: if I said this last time. I may have said
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Speaker 1: this last time. But here's the thing, right, you take
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Speaker 1: me to the food court at Costco. I'm a cheap day.
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Speaker 1: I'm very easily pleased. Like people were telling me, like, oh,
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Speaker 1: this is what I get when I go to the
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Speaker 1: food court and Costco, and I'm like, I want to
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Speaker 1: go to the food court and Costco. It's like when
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Speaker 1: I went to a seven eleven. Like I went to
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Speaker 1: a seven eleven and I really wanted to get like
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Speaker 1: the weird roller hot dog things, but I didn't get
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Speaker 1: one of them. I just got the gulp and then
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Speaker 1: I got a douhle gulp just because it was like,
4:11
Speaker 1: get the double gulp. It'd be really fun. And it's
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Speaker 1: bigger than my head. It was massive, it was so huge.
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Speaker 1: But like I'm I'm very excited because speaking of that US, right,
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Speaker 1: I will be announcing two dates soon. So keep your
4:26
Speaker 1: eyes peeled and if you want me to come to
4:28
Speaker 1: your city, then you make sure you fill in the
4:30
Speaker 1: form and let me know to come to you. So
4:32
Speaker 1: like there's a way link down below. So that's going
4:35
Speaker 1: to be across Europe, the US, Canada, like all of that.
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Speaker 1: I don't have Australia plan yet because I haven't got
4:43
Speaker 1: that far in my planning. But I know what you're thinking.
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Speaker 1: You're thinking, Katie, quite your jabble jab but in fact me,
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Speaker 1: in fact you I will. But first we've got to
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Speaker 1: get our source on our sources are Get No Mind,
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Speaker 1: The Life and Times of Marsha P. Johnson by Michael
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Speaker 1: Casino and Richard Morrison, The Death and Life of Marsha P.
5:12
Speaker 1: Johnson by David France Street, Transvestite Action, Revolutionaries, Survival Revoked,
5:22
Speaker 1: and Community by Leslie Feinberg Stonewall. The Riot that Sparked
5:30
Speaker 1: the Gay Revolution by David Carter. I also got a
5:35
Speaker 1: great delen information from Blackpast dot org, Biography dot com,
5:41
Speaker 1: and the Smithsonian dot com. Are you sitting comfortably good? Then?
5:49
Speaker 1: Leeds begin? It is the final episode of Pride Man.
5:54
Speaker 1: Then how can I talk about Pride without the one,
5:58
Speaker 1: the only Johnson. Marshall P. Johnson is an LGBTQ icon,
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Speaker 1: a person who lived, who struggled, and who fought for
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Speaker 1: the betterment of her community. She lived a life and
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Speaker 1: then her death well, her death is mysterious, but we'll
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Speaker 1: get to that. And before we do go on, I
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Speaker 1: want to give you a big, fat content warning. I
6:24
Speaker 1: am going to be discussing sensitive issues assault, rape, suicide, murder.
6:32
Speaker 1: So if that is something that you think you might
6:34
Speaker 1: not be able to handle right now, it's probably best
6:37
Speaker 1: you exit stage left. I mean, we'll see you next
6:39
Speaker 1: time when I get to tell you all about the
6:42
Speaker 1: history of America, and by America, I'm in the land
6:47
Speaker 1: that is now currently the United States of America, because
6:52
Speaker 1: what would be better to discuss on the two hundred
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Speaker 1: and fiftieth anniversary of those teen colonies doing their thing?
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Speaker 2: And some of you are gonna like it.
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Speaker 1: Some of you, well, I mean, if you listen to me,
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Speaker 1: you probably like, I'm gonna talk about it anyway, but
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Speaker 1: some people are not going to be that happy. I
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Speaker 1: don't think, oh dear, oh dear. But back to Marsha. Actually,
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Speaker 1: before going to Marsha sidebar, before we get into anything,
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Speaker 1: somebody left a comment like, oh, I can hear snoring
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Speaker 1: in the background. It's really distracting. And here's the thing.
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Speaker 1: I record alone in a room by myself. Now it
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Speaker 1: is rare that sometimes, like the kids are in the room.
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Speaker 1: That being said, I did record the John Benet Ramsey
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Speaker 1: episode like many many years ago with my child sleeping
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Speaker 1: beside me. But it wasn't that episode they commented on,
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Speaker 1: And I'm like, why are you hearing snoring in my house?
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Speaker 1: Who's snoring in my kitchen which is where I do
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Speaker 1: most of my recording currently due to the rest of
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Speaker 1: the house not being organized yet. Marcia Page Johnson, So
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Speaker 1: Marsha was born Malcolm Michaels Junior on the twenty fifth
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Speaker 1: of August nineteen forty five and Elizabeth New Jersey. Now
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Speaker 1: here's the thing. For the purpose of this episode, I
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Speaker 1: will be referring to Marcia as Marcia, and I will
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Speaker 1: be using she her pronouns, although probably I will revert
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Speaker 1: to the additional day here on there. And that is
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Speaker 1: just a habit. I tend to just call people they
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Speaker 1: at the best of times because it's one correct into
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Speaker 1: the easiest way for me not to miss gender. Someone
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Speaker 1: as my friend Jay. If you listen today Nightshade, Jay
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Speaker 1: is someone I never miss gender when I am talking
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Speaker 1: about them, but when I am talking directly to them,
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Speaker 1: every single time, it's like it just keeps happening. And
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Speaker 1: then Jay makes fun of me for it, and then
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Speaker 1: I feel terrible, and then they make fun of me
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Speaker 1: even more, which is great for them. They get great
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Speaker 1: enjoyment out of this, by the way. But the thing
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Speaker 1: about Marsha P. Johnson is that she would use Marcia
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Speaker 1: and Malcolm interchangeably. Marsha existed in a time in which
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Speaker 1: modern terminology was decades away from existing, and frankly, Marcia
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Speaker 1: at best could be described as gender non conforming. Many
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Speaker 1: of her friends would refer to Harvard's gender fluid because
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Speaker 1: sometimes she would be Marsia, sometimes she would be Malcolm.
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Speaker 1: They were a gay man, they were a drag queen,
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Speaker 1: a transvested out, they were all of these things. That is, again,
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Speaker 1: I'm gonna be using terminology as well that some of
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Speaker 1: you are gonna not be totally happy with, just because
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Speaker 1: it's going to come up and it's going to be
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Speaker 1: relevant to the story because it's going to be terminology
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Speaker 1: that Marcia her self used, and that's that's why it's
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Speaker 1: going to be in there. But Marcia was fluid. But
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Speaker 1: Marcia was known quite a lot mostly and as part
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Speaker 1: of the activism as Marcia P. Johnson, and so this
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Speaker 1: whole thing about being gender fluid, Like she would even
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Speaker 1: say that the PA and Marsha P. Johnson stood for
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Speaker 1: penal mind, which is what she would reply if anyone
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Speaker 1: asked her gender like it basically became her motto and
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Speaker 1: like even for a while before this, like Marsha was
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Speaker 1: the name that she chose for part of herself or however,
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Speaker 1: she wanted to express herself in this way, and like
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Speaker 1: at one point, like initially she called herself black Marcia,
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Speaker 1: which is like, I don't know. It's as if she
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Speaker 1: watched The Brady Bunch and she was like, that's Marcia,
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Speaker 1: but I'm Black Marcia. Think Marcia, Musha and Marsha. I
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Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know where she got Marsha from,
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Speaker 1: but that was the name she chose, and I love
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Speaker 1: that for her. But I am getting ahead of myself.
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Speaker 1: Marsha was born on the twenty fourth of August nineteen
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Speaker 1: forty five in Elizabeth, New Jersey, to Malcolm Michael Senior,
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Speaker 1: an assembly line worker for General Motives, and ALBERTA Claiborne,
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Speaker 1: a housekeeper. She was the fifth of seven children born
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Speaker 1: to the couple. Now I did try and find out
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Speaker 1: more about her siblings, but I could only find two
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Speaker 1: older brothers and older sister and one sister that I
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Speaker 1: couldn't find an age four. So we had Albert, Charles, Jeanie,
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Speaker 1: and Normy. Now Marcia had a conservative Christian upbringing, but
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Speaker 1: not the kind that you think, because this was one
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Speaker 1: that was focused more on tolerance and kindness. As you
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Speaker 1: will find out her dad Malcom. He had come to
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Speaker 1: New Jersey from Virginia as part of what was the
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Speaker 1: Second Migration. The Second Great Migration, which ran from nineteen
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Speaker 1: forty to nineteen seventy, was the mass relocation of over
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Speaker 1: five million African Americans from the rural and urban south
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Speaker 1: to the northeast, the Midwest, and the west. Was it
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Speaker 1: sparked by World War II defense jobs? And what was it?
12:27
Speaker 1: You know? The desire to escape Jim Crow a little
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Speaker 1: from columby a little from column B. When Marshall was
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Speaker 1: three years old and two siblings later, Marsha's parents separated
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Speaker 1: and Malcolm relocated to London because that's where GM Morris
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Speaker 1: plant was. He continued to be a fixture of Marsha's life,
12:51
Speaker 1: but Marsha stayed in Alberta with her mother. Now, when
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Speaker 1: she was around five years old, Marsha wore women's clothing
13:01
Speaker 1: for the first time, much to her mother's chargron, but
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Speaker 1: she loved it. Now, yes, the thing, This is the
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Speaker 1: thing kids do anyway, though, isn't it? Like? They dress up,
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Speaker 1: They dress up, they paint their faces, they have slime
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Speaker 1: in their hair while finding dragons and a gluttle too too.
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Speaker 1: If no one forces them out of it. But for Marcia,
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Speaker 1: putting on women's clothing just felt right, and she would
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Speaker 1: continue to wear clothes women's clothes until the neighborhood boys
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Speaker 1: quote got fresh with her. How white do I sound?
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Speaker 1: I mean, I'm the whitest person in you, lover meet.
13:39
Speaker 1: I'm a full blown Mao sapien. And but the boys,
13:44
Speaker 1: well they put their hands on her. And when she
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Speaker 1: was twelve she was assaulted by a neighborhood boy he
13:58
Speaker 1: was thirteen. Well, she was raped, and she didn't even
14:06
Speaker 1: know what sex was at that age, and it took
14:09
Speaker 1: away of what childhood.
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Speaker 2: She had left.
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Speaker 1: So for her, like she had no knowledge, People didn't
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Speaker 1: talk about it. It wasn't something that was discussed. And
14:21
Speaker 1: like as far as she was concerned, she was married
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Speaker 1: to Jesus because they were religious, and there she was,
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Speaker 1: her childhood just gone. Speaking of growing up, Marsha was
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Speaker 1: raised in a wee house on Washington Avenue in Elizabeth,
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Speaker 1: and Elizabeth was a segregated city, but it was also
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Speaker 1: an early hub for civil rights activism, so all of
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Speaker 1: this would be happening around her when she was young,
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Speaker 1: and she grew up there very religi attending the Mount
15:01
Speaker 1: Tenmon African Methodist Episcopal Church. All of these churches have
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Speaker 1: really long names, like all the churches. Ever, it can't
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Speaker 1: just be like something church. It always has to be
15:14
Speaker 1: the Church of the oppressive destructive thing or the Church
15:18
Speaker 1: of Our Lady of Hope and Sorrow, like they're always
15:21
Speaker 1: like really long names. Oh it's Our Lady of Perpetual
15:25
Speaker 1: sadness like cool, like they always have really long names.
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Speaker 1: But the church that she attended, actually, this is really interesting,
15:34
Speaker 1: is the oldest Black church in Elizabeth and Marcia. She
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Speaker 1: was deeply religious. She went to church every Sunday. She
15:45
Speaker 1: performed on stage as part of the church's Christmas program.
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Speaker 1: And yeah, her family were the type of conservative Christians
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Speaker 1: that were more do unto others, show compassion and kindness
15:59
Speaker 1: as opposed to the God will smite you for your existence.
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Speaker 1: Like her family, although they might not have upgraded with
16:07
Speaker 1: her choices in life, were there for her throughout and
16:12
Speaker 1: even and even when she came back home, like sometimes
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Speaker 1: she would bring people with her, people who needed help,
16:20
Speaker 1: people who needed a warm meal and a family environment.
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Speaker 1: She would bring them back to New Jersey. She would
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Speaker 1: bring them back to Elizabeth, meet her family and then,
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Speaker 1: you know, bring them back to New York. Marcia went
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Speaker 1: to the Edison High School, which is now the Thomas A.
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Speaker 1: Edison Career and Technical Academy. She was a drummer in
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Speaker 1: the marching band. She was involved in parades and the like.
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Speaker 1: She was very much community focused from the get go,
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Speaker 1: and when she was seventeen, she enlisted in the US Navy.
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Speaker 1: Now she did begin tree recruit training in Chicago, but
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Speaker 1: was honorably discharged after she punched a man who tried
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Speaker 1: to sexually assault her. Good for her. Initially heading back
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Speaker 1: home to Elizabeth, she decided that she needed to get
17:13
Speaker 1: the heck at a dodge. I moved to New York
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Speaker 1: City with a bag of clothes and fifteen dollars in
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Speaker 1: her pocket, which is wild. It's like nineteen sixty two,
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Speaker 1: sixty three and you've got fifteen bucks to your name nowadays,
17:28
Speaker 1: I don't even think i'd get you a meal in
17:30
Speaker 1: New York, which incidentally is one of the places I
17:34
Speaker 1: like to visit. It's on the list because I haven't
17:36
Speaker 1: been there yet. And okay, sidebar, under another side bar. Okay,
17:42
Speaker 1: you know I we talk about again. I said earlier
17:43
Speaker 1: about the seven to eleven's, the food court and all
17:45
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff. I want to go to a bodega, Okay,
17:49
Speaker 1: a proper bodega and one that has a cat. You know,
17:53
Speaker 1: if the bodega has a cat, I know it's a
17:55
Speaker 1: good one because it reminds me of the corner shops
17:58
Speaker 1: in Scotland when I was growing up. Like, you know,
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Speaker 1: it was a good corner shop if it had a cat,
18:04
Speaker 1: you know. But back to Marcia. She gets to New
18:11
Speaker 1: York and she's homeless. Sometimes she's lucky and she sleeps
18:17
Speaker 1: in a movie theater, which was common back then. Like
18:20
Speaker 1: even if you go back to like the forties, if
18:23
Speaker 1: you remember from like the Black Dahly episodes, Elizabeth Short
18:26
Speaker 1: did that too, Like if she was desperate for somewhere
18:29
Speaker 1: to stay and she literally had no other option, she
18:32
Speaker 1: would just go sleep in a movie theater. Now, a
18:37
Speaker 1: lot of people who would come to know Marcia would
18:40
Speaker 1: struggle with how she managed to survive. At this time.
18:44
Speaker 1: She was transient, she didn't have a job, and she
18:47
Speaker 1: resulted to begging and sex work just to survive. And
18:52
Speaker 1: it's a roundobout this time when she met eleven year
18:55
Speaker 1: old Sylvia Rivero, who would go on to say that
18:59
Speaker 1: Marcia saved her life. Sylvia was also transgender, and that
19:05
Speaker 1: meant that she wasn't welcome in her grandmother's home anymore,
19:09
Speaker 1: essentially orphaned. Sylvia's mother completed suicide and her father abandoned
19:14
Speaker 1: the family well before that. And so when seventeen year
19:21
Speaker 1: old Marcia held her hands open for her, she was
19:25
Speaker 1: ready to be there, ready to be welcomed. And they
19:30
Speaker 1: became each other's family, and Marcia was building this community,
19:37
Speaker 1: her found family, spending a lot of time in Greenwich Village,
19:42
Speaker 1: particularly Christopher Street. Now Greenwich Village was the gay spot
19:47
Speaker 1: in New York where a lot of members of the
19:48
Speaker 1: LGBTQ community would hang out spend time together. And so
19:53
Speaker 1: even though this was, you know, a frightening time for Marsha,
19:57
Speaker 1: She's a teenager in this big city. She's sleeping in
20:01
Speaker 1: and picture houses, bath houses and eventually friends couches. She's
20:05
Speaker 1: finding her people, and like obviously the ball scenes in existence,
20:11
Speaker 1: and you've got voguing and all that jazz happening. And
20:14
Speaker 1: Marcia didn't really take drags seriously because she couldn't afford to.
20:20
Speaker 1: She performed, but she used what she had and she
20:24
Speaker 1: had this really fun, whimsical sense of style. It wasn't expensive,
20:29
Speaker 1: but it was so good and so her. Like she
20:33
Speaker 1: got her glad rags on using dresses, high heels, robes, stockings, wigs,
20:39
Speaker 1: and she would add like really interesting design elements like brooches,
20:42
Speaker 1: artificial fruit, and of course the flower crowns. Like if
20:46
Speaker 1: you see a picture of Marsha P. Johnson, you'll usually
20:49
Speaker 1: see her in a flower crown, and sometimes he's like
20:52
Speaker 1: big fabulous sunglasses. Like she would make these flower crowns
20:56
Speaker 1: and seldy so she could make a little something. So
21:01
Speaker 1: when she performed, it was her personality that really shone.
21:07
Speaker 1: And Marcia was a kind person. But that's not to
21:10
Speaker 1: say she was a pushover, because no, absolutely not. The
21:20
Speaker 1: very first Pride was a protest. Stonewall was a riot.
21:26
Speaker 1: Now this is something you may have had in passing,
21:28
Speaker 1: but it's true. So let me slip into some context
21:32
Speaker 1: for you. In the nineteen sixties, it was illegal to
21:36
Speaker 1: be gay. A bunch of laws have been put in
21:39
Speaker 1: place as a runoff from the McCarthy era, including that
21:43
Speaker 1: people had to wear the clothes of the gender they
21:45
Speaker 1: were assigned at buff If you want to feel refresher
21:49
Speaker 1: or the Lavender Scare episode, which is I think just
21:51
Speaker 1: two episodes before this one goes into McCarthyism and the
21:55
Speaker 1: persecution of the LGBTQ community. Effectively, gay people weren't allowed
22:01
Speaker 1: to exist, and they certainly weren't allowed to congregate, especially
22:07
Speaker 1: in bars, and they certainly weren't allowed to drink in them.
22:11
Speaker 1: You weren't allowed to dance with a member of the
22:13
Speaker 1: same sex in public. Like, all of these things could
22:17
Speaker 1: get you arrested and charged with sexual deviancy, and bars
22:22
Speaker 1: that were seem to be promoting that kind of deviancy
22:26
Speaker 1: for serving drinks to a gay person, you could be
22:28
Speaker 1: fined or shut down, which is wild. Like imagine turning
22:33
Speaker 1: to a patron at your bar and being like, I
22:35
Speaker 1: end to pay a v before a poy the sharif SMBUCA. Like, imagine,
22:41
Speaker 1: so cops were reading suspected gay bars all the time,
22:45
Speaker 1: because apparently that was a far more important use of
22:47
Speaker 1: her dime when not solving muddles and shits. They'd read
22:51
Speaker 1: places like they even walk into places and be like,
22:55
Speaker 1: that person's gay, you serve them a drink, You're getting
22:59
Speaker 1: shut down. They're getting arrested. So on and so forth,
23:04
Speaker 1: which brings us to the Mob. That is correct, the Mafia. See,
23:10
Speaker 1: the Mafia owned a lot of businesses, including bars and clubs.
23:14
Speaker 1: One such bar was the Stone Wall In, which was
23:18
Speaker 1: connected to the Genovese crime family. Now, if you want
23:22
Speaker 1: to hear about the best bisexual mob queen, I've got
23:27
Speaker 1: a whole episode, way way back on Anna GENOVESEI, although
23:32
Speaker 1: I do mispronounce her name through the entire episode. Now,
23:37
Speaker 1: the Mafia realized that a whole community of people needed
23:41
Speaker 1: a third space. Of course, they did not do this
23:44
Speaker 1: out of the kindness of the hearts, but to the
23:46
Speaker 1: fullness of their pockets. See, the Mob didn't discriminate. If
23:50
Speaker 1: you could pay, you could stay. So the Mafia ran
23:54
Speaker 1: a whole host of gay bars in New York. And
23:57
Speaker 1: with the Mob running things, there's some extra protection. Usually.
24:04
Speaker 1: The Stonehall In was a legal loophole of an establishment.
24:08
Speaker 1: It was deemed to be a private club with a
24:11
Speaker 1: guest book signed by members. And it wasn't a bar.
24:16
Speaker 1: It was byob bring your own bottle like that was
24:21
Speaker 1: the lophole. So as long as you.
24:23
Speaker 2: Could afford to come in, you were welcome.
24:27
Speaker 1: Like what's what's pretty good? Here, right, is that it's
24:32
Speaker 1: like you need to bring your own booths and it's like, no,
24:34
Speaker 1: they'd serve booths right because they'd sell it. And it
24:38
Speaker 1: was just like a very clever workaround. Now, what's interest
24:45
Speaker 1: in here is that the community, the queer community itself
24:52
Speaker 1: wasn't exactly the most accepting of spaces like you'd think.
24:58
Speaker 1: But here's thing. Communities within themselves, they can become insular
25:03
Speaker 1: and they can also be guilty of other ring people,
25:09
Speaker 1: you know. And well, the thing about this is trans
25:18
Speaker 1: women and drag queens were not really appreciated by the
25:21
Speaker 1: LGB minus the tea community. Many members of the gay
25:26
Speaker 1: community wanted to distance themselves from drag queens and the like.
25:31
Speaker 1: Button Stonewall drag queens, gender fluid and other such non
25:36
Speaker 1: conforming Quay people could go and be welcome, and the
25:41
Speaker 1: mob well, they basically had a deal with the NYPD.
25:45
Speaker 1: They'd get forewarned about a red happening and so they'd
25:48
Speaker 1: send word out not to come that day to their customers,
25:51
Speaker 1: all while just so happening to be closed on that
25:55
Speaker 1: very day. Whoops a daisy, we weren't open for business.
25:58
Speaker 1: There was no club meeting that day. Nothing underward happening here,
26:02
Speaker 1: nud to nudge, wink wink. But on the twenty eighth
26:07
Speaker 1: of June nineteen sixty nine, the NYPD showed up at
26:10
Speaker 1: the stonewall and completely unannounced, no forewarning, no chance. The
26:19
Speaker 1: cops stomped in and they start beating people, like they
26:23
Speaker 1: arrest thirteen people, and they start doing genital checks. You
26:27
Speaker 1: fucking heard me, genital checks, like, hey, we're gonna sexually
26:35
Speaker 1: assault you. For the good of people. Female officers started
26:43
Speaker 1: to take people into the bathroom to force them to
26:47
Speaker 1: show them they're genitals, to prove what biological sex they are,
26:52
Speaker 1: because if they were wearing the wrong clothing, that's an
26:55
Speaker 1: arrestable charge. Right, if you're wearing trousers and you have
27:00
Speaker 1: a vulva, right, Any transperson or trans women, sorry, any
27:06
Speaker 1: trans women who didn't have a sex change, you didn't
27:09
Speaker 1: have that surgery, arrested if they had a skirt on
27:13
Speaker 1: if and I think it was technically you had to
27:15
Speaker 1: have if like two or more items of your clothing
27:18
Speaker 1: were not the gender as sound at birth, like if
27:20
Speaker 1: they didn't match, like women wearing slacks, like arrested. Right,
27:28
Speaker 1: they're like pulling upscuts and down trousers to see if
27:32
Speaker 1: someone has a penis or a vulva. They're looking at vulvas,
27:36
Speaker 1: They're not looking at vaginas, right, I Mean, that's like
27:40
Speaker 1: you'd think it's it's all bad because it's violating, and
27:44
Speaker 1: that's not even the right word for it, Like there's
27:47
Speaker 1: a more extreme word, but I just don't have it
27:49
Speaker 1: in my brain. And this was going far and people
27:55
Speaker 1: were getting violently attacked by officers and one women, amazing,
28:01
Speaker 1: fabulous butch, lesbian and drag king Stormy Delovey, she gets
28:08
Speaker 1: beaten with a billy club and she's just fucking pissed.
28:12
Speaker 1: She's screaming like do something. Are you gonna fucking do something?
28:19
Speaker 1: And here's the thing about Stonewall, right, And that's we
28:21
Speaker 1: don't actually know that much about it, Like there were
28:25
Speaker 1: so many contradicting accounts of what happened that Like there's
28:29
Speaker 1: a narrative that's been presented. Cops raid the place, people
28:32
Speaker 1: were ressessed and a brick is thrown. Was it Martha P.
28:37
Speaker 1: Johnson who threw the brick? Was it Sylvia Rivero? Was
28:42
Speaker 1: there even a brick? Like we don't even know if
28:45
Speaker 1: there really was a brick but we do know that
28:48
Speaker 1: there was a punch, and the person who threw the
28:51
Speaker 1: first punch was Stormy Delivey, And this just sets everyone off.
28:56
Speaker 1: And according to some witnesses, Martha P. Johnson was there
29:01
Speaker 1: and through a shot glass across the room proclaiming I've
29:04
Speaker 1: got my civil rights, which is basically I like to
29:08
Speaker 1: see that as Marsha's version of going fuck this for
29:12
Speaker 1: a game of soldiers. Others say, by the way, that
29:17
Speaker 1: Marcia was one of the first people to start offering
29:22
Speaker 1: the cops a knuckle sandwich. But chaos ensues. Everyone is
29:28
Speaker 1: fighting back and they are throwing shit at the cops
29:30
Speaker 1: anything they can get their hands on, bottles, chairs, change
29:34
Speaker 1: from their pockets, like everything they could, like guess, to
29:38
Speaker 1: the point that the cops actually have to take cover
29:40
Speaker 1: inside the stone wall In. But like this angry mob
29:45
Speaker 1: is just getting bigger and louder, chat and stuff like
29:48
Speaker 1: gay power, and in an act of desperation or stupidity,
29:54
Speaker 1: I'm not entirely sure which one it was, a police
29:57
Speaker 1: officer sets the stone wall In on fire. They're inside
30:03
Speaker 1: it and they've set it on fire. Right Incidentally, there
30:09
Speaker 1: was also a report that Marcia P. Johnson showed up
30:13
Speaker 1: like when she arrived at the Stonewall in it was
30:16
Speaker 1: already a blaze. Luckily, the fire department was able to
30:23
Speaker 1: extinguish the flames, save the building and everyone in it.
30:26
Speaker 1: But that wasn't the end of it. For the next
30:31
Speaker 1: five days following Stonewall protests, marches, gatherings, they start popping up.
30:37
Speaker 1: Thus the very first Pride March was born. The whole
30:41
Speaker 1: gay community came together, an act of resistance, an act
30:45
Speaker 1: of community, and this whole incident is one of the
30:49
Speaker 1: reasons why there's a huge discourse as to why cops
30:53
Speaker 1: don't be long at Pride. It's very much a whole thing.
31:00
Speaker 1: So after the events at Stonewall, Marsha became very active
31:04
Speaker 1: in the gay activists alignes. The GAA. Okay, I'm sorry,
31:09
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to sidebar you again here. So in
31:13
Speaker 1: Ireland we have the GAA it's not this GA, it's
31:16
Speaker 1: different GA. We got the gap, it's the gap. So
31:20
Speaker 1: the GA, right, I'm trying to do what a candy
31:23
Speaker 1: the accident, right, I have to soundly come from cabin.
31:27
Speaker 1: So the GA is all over Ireland, so basically it's
31:30
Speaker 1: inter county, but it also has each county, so you
31:33
Speaker 1: would have like an All Ireland Final, and it would
31:35
Speaker 1: have a team from like County Donegal, County Cork, Galway, Dublin,
31:40
Speaker 1: et cetera. And each county has colors, so you'd have
31:44
Speaker 1: county colors. And so if you're ever driving through Ireland
31:47
Speaker 1: and you see flags that have two colors of them,
31:50
Speaker 1: they're usually just two squarels that make up a rectangle.
31:54
Speaker 1: If it's like blue and yellow or green and orange
31:56
Speaker 1: or whatever, like that's the gas that's the GA flags, okay.
32:02
Speaker 1: And so this would include things like Gaelic football, camogie hurling,
32:09
Speaker 1: although for years I would call harling Hallley because that's
32:13
Speaker 1: what I thought it was called. And I got made
32:15
Speaker 1: fun of by lots of people from Limerick, of all places.
32:18
Speaker 1: I'm kidding, they were from County Clear. I wouldn't I
32:22
Speaker 1: wouldn't complain about Limerick people. They're okay. So me reading
32:27
Speaker 1: the word gay here is very funny because I'm just like, ah,
32:31
Speaker 1: sure they're they wherever. They're Harley and they're Schlutter. Schlutter
32:35
Speaker 1: is the name of the ball that they use in Harley,
32:39
Speaker 1: just so you know, and it's it actually goes all
32:42
Speaker 1: the way back to like ancient Irish myth, and you know,
32:45
Speaker 1: that's a story for another day. So Marcia is alwaso
32:48
Speaker 1: involved in the Gay Liberation Front GLF, and then Marcia
32:54
Speaker 1: and Sylvia had established Star House, So Star stood for
32:59
Speaker 1: street Transvestites, Action Revolutionaries, and they housed transgender youths, kids
33:06
Speaker 1: who were homeless and had nowhere else to go. And
33:09
Speaker 1: they didn't just put a roof over their heads. They
33:12
Speaker 1: gave them money, they fed them, they gave them clothes,
33:15
Speaker 1: and most of all, they fought for the rights. And
33:19
Speaker 1: the first Star House came about because well it was
33:22
Speaker 1: a dilapidated building owned by Michael Umbels, a man who
33:26
Speaker 1: was very well connected with the mob, especially the Gambino
33:30
Speaker 1: crime family. So he had this piece of ship building
33:34
Speaker 1: and Marsha and Sylvia basically made a deal if he
33:38
Speaker 1: gave it to them for cheap, like cheap rent, then
33:41
Speaker 1: they would do the place up. And but they did.
33:44
Speaker 1: I was going to say him, by Jeeves. They did.
33:46
Speaker 1: I don't know why I was going to say, by Jeeves,
33:48
Speaker 1: but they did. They renovated it and they got it
33:50
Speaker 1: looking fucking fabulous. So they had this lovely house and
33:54
Speaker 1: they were caring for these young people, and they called
33:58
Speaker 1: Marsha the queen mother, and these young people that she
34:02
Speaker 1: was caring for, she called them her children. Now here's
34:06
Speaker 1: the thing, Marcia, Marcia's a humble queen, right, Marcia gives
34:12
Speaker 1: full credit to Sylvia for setting up Star House, and
34:17
Speaker 1: Marcia says that she's merely the vice president. But then
34:21
Speaker 1: you've got Sylvia saying that Marcia really set up the
34:24
Speaker 1: first her house when she helped her all those years before.
34:31
Speaker 1: Now they end up being evicted by Humbles because they
34:34
Speaker 1: were behind on rent. Listen, if you're written from the
34:38
Speaker 1: mop okay and and you're like behind on rent, like
34:43
Speaker 1: if you're not making rent, you are going to end
34:45
Speaker 1: up back on the street. Unfortunately, there wasn't really a
34:49
Speaker 1: lot of job opportunities for transgender women in the nineteen sixties,
34:54
Speaker 1: or was gender nonconforming women. They had less options to
34:58
Speaker 1: earn money to di let at least, which is why
35:02
Speaker 1: they often engaged with sex work just to bring in
35:05
Speaker 1: some money. Meanwhile, Marcia became entangled with Thomas Gerald Davis,
35:12
Speaker 1: also known as Candy. So she met Candy a dance,
35:17
Speaker 1: after which they regularly spent time at Starhouse together and
35:21
Speaker 1: at some point they had this wedding ceremony like this
35:25
Speaker 1: symbolic gesture of their love, and Candy gifted Marcia a
35:31
Speaker 1: dog to symbolize the relationship. Now the dog was pregnant
35:35
Speaker 1: and had little puppies which all became like part of Starhouse.
35:40
Speaker 1: And this the thing is a friend, characterized the Pearl's
35:44
Speaker 1: relationship as marked by love complexity and a deep desire
35:50
Speaker 1: for self actualization. Now, this relationship was not without its faults.
35:57
Speaker 1: Candy was a drug user and one day they tried
36:00
Speaker 1: to rob an off Judy Kopp, who shot them in
36:03
Speaker 1: the chest, killing them. Candy's death really affected Marcia and
36:09
Speaker 1: it triggered a breakdown, resulting in her being admitted to
36:12
Speaker 1: the Wards Island State Hospital. And it was here where
36:16
Speaker 1: she had a revelation. And this was to just give
36:26
Speaker 1: it her all to really push into activism, to ignore
36:32
Speaker 1: the romantic set of life. And so she really did.
36:39
Speaker 1: She started pushing for the New York City Gay Rights Bill,
36:42
Speaker 1: which the GAA had introduced in September nineteen seventy. The
36:47
Speaker 1: purpose of the bill was to provide protections against sexual
36:50
Speaker 1: orientation discrimination. Marcia supported the bill, stating, and I quote,
36:58
Speaker 1: I have no intention of getting a job. As long
37:01
Speaker 1: as this country discriminates against homosexuals, there's only homosexuals, bisexuals
37:08
Speaker 1: and try sexuals, Darling, and there are no straight people.
37:15
Speaker 1: So the Starhouse was short lived, as was the next
37:18
Speaker 1: Starhouse they set up, because well, they just couldn't afford
37:21
Speaker 1: to keep running it. But Marcia Marcia at her best right,
37:27
Speaker 1: and she was this beacon of light. She went out
37:31
Speaker 1: of her way to care for others. She was so
37:33
Speaker 1: considerate and generous and like if someone complimented her for anything,
37:39
Speaker 1: she wore a scarf, a flower, crown or brooch, like
37:43
Speaker 1: she would just give it to you. Oh you like it, honey,
37:45
Speaker 1: here you go right literally, you know, when they say, oh,
37:49
Speaker 1: they'll give you the shirt off their back, Marcia would okay.
37:54
Speaker 1: And here's the thing. She wanted to help transgender people
37:58
Speaker 1: to have a voice, and she's at what was it.
38:04
Speaker 1: There's this rally for gay rights in seventy three, and
38:09
Speaker 1: things just nosedive because at this point, the dream of
38:14
Speaker 1: a united gay liberation movement was splintering. Some organizations pushed
38:20
Speaker 1: for gradual political change, where others believed that different paths
38:24
Speaker 1: were required. In the midst of all these divisions, stood Marsha,
38:30
Speaker 1: who spent years caring for those the movement too often overlooked.
38:38
Speaker 1: When the annual Pride march arrived, Star, the organization Marcia
38:41
Speaker 1: had helped build to support homeless, transgender and queer youth,
38:45
Speaker 1: was meant to lead the parade. Instead, its members were
38:50
Speaker 1: pushed aside, the banner disappeared from the rally stage, and
38:54
Speaker 1: they were told there was no place for them at
38:56
Speaker 1: the front of the movement they had helped shape and
39:01
Speaker 1: Sylvia Rivero, she ends up on stage begging, pleading with
39:07
Speaker 1: the entire community to help these youths, to help transgender people,
39:14
Speaker 1: to give them a voice, to help them when she
39:16
Speaker 1: gets bored off the fucking stage, and for Marcia, it
39:22
Speaker 1: was another painful reminder that even within a fight for
39:26
Speaker 1: a quality, some voices were considered easier to ignore than others.
39:31
Speaker 1: But she didn't disappear into the crowd. She remained a
39:34
Speaker 1: symbol of compassion, resilience, and hope, continuing to care for
39:38
Speaker 1: her community even when recognition was slow to come. And
39:44
Speaker 1: after Star dissolved, Marcia found a new home on the
39:49
Speaker 1: stage of all Things Right. She joined the Angels of Light,
39:53
Speaker 1: which is like this colorful theater group known for like bold,
39:57
Speaker 1: joyful performances, and so she's it's just like spreading joy
40:03
Speaker 1: and hope and just like putting positivity out in the
40:05
Speaker 1: world and around. At the same time, she begins performing
40:09
Speaker 1: with the Hot Peaches. Peaches, Ah, sorry, I have a
40:15
Speaker 1: thing about peaches. And so the Hot Peaches are a
40:19
Speaker 1: drag theater trip. And so they appear in like a
40:22
Speaker 1: string of productions at the seventies, and she performs with
40:26
Speaker 1: them four years and Marcia refused to let anyone decide
40:31
Speaker 1: will she belonged. Even when she was pressured to choose
40:36
Speaker 1: between the two theater groups, she carried on performing with both.
40:40
Speaker 1: She even appeared in independent films and plays and wild.
40:46
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy five, she was photographed by Andy Warhol
40:51
Speaker 1: for his Ladies and Gentlemen Portrait series. Life off stage
40:58
Speaker 1: was unsurprisingly less glamorous. Friends from the Angels often helped
41:04
Speaker 1: cover her living expenses, but Marcia struggled with periods of
41:09
Speaker 1: per mental health and was repeatedly hospitalized. During one difficult episode,
41:16
Speaker 1: she was arrested after reacting to a group of people
41:20
Speaker 1: who had been harassing her. It's okay for people to
41:24
Speaker 1: do things to you, but don't react to it like
41:27
Speaker 1: that makes you the bad person, which is such fucking
41:31
Speaker 1: shit take and is one that we keep pushing, like
41:35
Speaker 1: take the high ground, No, I'll take the low ground.
41:39
Speaker 1: I will dig a hole under you so deep it
41:41
Speaker 1: will lead you to the pits of hades themselves. But
41:48
Speaker 1: she has an episode and as a result, she's admitted
41:51
Speaker 1: to Belleview Hospital, where she is treated with the antipsychotic
41:55
Speaker 1: medication thorazine. That mmmmm mm hmm, this drug. It made
42:05
Speaker 1: it painful for her to speak and perform, and sometimes
42:11
Speaker 1: she would disappear from the theater scenes for months while
42:13
Speaker 1: she recovered, and each time she came back, like a boomerangue,
42:19
Speaker 1: she brought back the same kindness, humor, and this unmistakable
42:24
Speaker 1: spirit that made her so fucking beloved and like not
42:30
Speaker 1: just you know these health issues she's going through, like
42:33
Speaker 1: her and a pal actually went to see this, you know,
42:36
Speaker 1: the screen of her that Andy Warhol did at a
42:39
Speaker 1: store on Christopher Street, and they kicked her out of
42:42
Speaker 1: the store because no one recognized her. Now, those of
42:47
Speaker 1: us who are interested in LGBTQ history are aware of
42:51
Speaker 1: Marsha P. Johnson. We know enough about her we've at
42:54
Speaker 1: least like we would at least recognize her image or
42:58
Speaker 1: or no, just enough about her right like we know
43:02
Speaker 1: we can skim it, you know, anyone who has an
43:04
Speaker 1: interest would have some knowledge. But she wasn't really an
43:14
Speaker 1: icon in her own time, like she wasn't held in
43:19
Speaker 1: such high regard when she was alive, and by nineteen
43:26
Speaker 1: seventy nine, Marcia was once again without a permanent home.
43:31
Speaker 1: She often spent her nights in gay bathhouses or stayed
43:34
Speaker 1: with friends whenever she could. Then, in the winter of
43:38
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty, during one bitterly cold night, activist Randy Wicker
43:43
Speaker 1: invited her to stay with him and Hoboken, New Jersey,
43:46
Speaker 1: which started off as an act of kindness, but like
43:50
Speaker 1: she moved in and never really left right, this became
43:54
Speaker 1: this really long lasting friendship between the two of them,
43:58
Speaker 1: and they would live together for the next twelve years.
44:05
Speaker 1: Even with a roof over her head, life didn't get easy.
44:11
Speaker 1: It remained difficult. Like many transgender women at the time,
44:16
Speaker 1: Marsha relied on sex work to survive, and in nineteen
44:22
Speaker 1: eighty she was shot in the back by a taxi
44:26
Speaker 1: driver while working along New York's West Side Highway. Doctors
44:31
Speaker 1: were unable to remove the bullet and it remained in
44:34
Speaker 1: her body for the rest of her life, causing constant
44:38
Speaker 1: pain and making it difficult for her to sleep. Now
44:42
Speaker 1: I was seeing Vincent. They did try and remove the bullet.
44:45
Speaker 1: They did everything they could, but they just couldn't. But
44:49
Speaker 1: being shot wasn't the only time that she was on
44:54
Speaker 1: the receiving end of violence while engaging in sex work,
44:58
Speaker 1: like her joy the people that she was providing the
45:03
Speaker 1: service too, like she would often get roughed up by them.
45:08
Speaker 1: And this was a continuous hardship. But despite everything she
45:14
Speaker 1: was going through, Marcia continued to build relationships and find
45:19
Speaker 1: moments of joy like in the eighties. Like the early eighties,
45:26
Speaker 1: she managed to have this this on off relationship with
45:30
Speaker 1: Joseph Wartanski. She traveled to places like she went to Europe,
45:37
Speaker 1: she went to Puerto Rico and Los Angeles, and often
45:41
Speaker 1: with help from Randy Right. And so she ends up
45:47
Speaker 1: like going to like the Olympics, the eighty four Olympics,
45:54
Speaker 1: and she's engaging in sex work, you know, just to
45:58
Speaker 1: have enough money to get by. And she did that then.
46:03
Speaker 1: But as the nineteen eighties began, a new crisis swept
46:07
Speaker 1: through New York. At first, few people understood what it was,
46:13
Speaker 1: the illness that will later become known as AIDS, which
46:16
Speaker 1: spread rapidly through the LGBTQ plus community, taking friends, partners,
46:23
Speaker 1: and chosen family one by one. Marsha couldn't just stand
46:29
Speaker 1: by and watch. She spent hours, countless hours visiting people
46:34
Speaker 1: in hospitals, sitting beside their beds, praying with them, lighting candles,
46:39
Speaker 1: and making sure they knew they were not alone. When
46:48
Speaker 1: a close friend became seriously ill, she cared for him
46:52
Speaker 1: until his final days and later had held a vigil
46:55
Speaker 1: in his memory. She also looked after David Homes, a
47:01
Speaker 1: close friend living with AID, stepping in is his nurse
47:04
Speaker 1: whenever she was needed, and alongside her caring work, Marcia
47:12
Speaker 1: Marcia continued to speak out. After she was honored in
47:16
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighty five New York Pride, she helped organize
47:19
Speaker 1: the first AIDS Walk in Los Angeles. She took part
47:23
Speaker 1: in fundraising events back in New York and Now. Even
47:26
Speaker 1: though she was never a formal member of act UP,
47:30
Speaker 1: she joined protests and marches demanding better treatment, faster research,
47:35
Speaker 1: and dignity for people living with AIDS. She watched people
47:44
Speaker 1: around her whither and die, and the weight of so
47:52
Speaker 1: much loss was impossible to escape. Watching friends die one
47:57
Speaker 1: after another took a heavy toll on Marcia's own mental
47:59
Speaker 1: health health, leading to more periods where she needed hospital care.
48:06
Speaker 1: By the end of the decade, she'd also learned that
48:08
Speaker 1: she was HIV positive herself. Even then, she refused to
48:11
Speaker 1: stop showing up for others. At Pride in nineteen ninety
48:16
Speaker 1: she marched carrying a banner honoring David Combs. Determined that
48:21
Speaker 1: those loss of the epidemic would not be forgotten. Marsha P.
48:26
Speaker 1: Johnson was HIV positive. Marsha P. Johnson had contracted AIDS,
48:34
Speaker 1: but it would not be AIDS that caused the end
48:39
Speaker 1: of her life. No, her death would be far more complicated.
48:50
Speaker 1: Just days after the nineteen ninety four Pride celebrations, Marsha
48:56
Speaker 1: quietly left Randy Wicker's apartment. It wasn't on you for
49:01
Speaker 1: her to travel on a whipman. She had often spoken
49:03
Speaker 1: about him in to La, so at first Wicker believed
49:06
Speaker 1: that's exactly what she did. But as the days passed
49:10
Speaker 1: and he had no word from her, concern began to
49:13
Speaker 1: grow on the furth of July, Wicker went to the
49:17
Speaker 1: police to report Marcia missing, and instead of taking the report,
49:23
Speaker 1: officers turned him away, claiming incorrectly, the missing person report
49:29
Speaker 1: could only be filed for people under the age of forty,
49:33
Speaker 1: and Marcia was forty six. You know what, this is
49:39
Speaker 1: a fucking heartbreaking response for someone who had spent so
49:42
Speaker 1: much of her life caring for others. This feat dragging
49:46
Speaker 1: by the NYPD, like it meant that valuable time was
49:54
Speaker 1: lost before her disappearance was taken seriously, if it ever
49:58
Speaker 1: was at all. On the sixth of July nineteen ninety four,
50:05
Speaker 1: Marsha's body was discovered floating in the Hudson River, just
50:09
Speaker 1: off the West Village Pier. From the get go, cops
50:12
Speaker 1: worked under the assumption that Marcia completed suicide her friends. However,
50:20
Speaker 1: they wanted a proper investigation, They wanted ansels and for
50:25
Speaker 1: the police, well, Marcia was just west dead, the wrong
50:31
Speaker 1: kind of victim. The thing is just when starts alone,
50:36
Speaker 1: this should have been investigated like even nowadays, Like transgender
50:42
Speaker 1: people experience violent crime at a rate of w eighty
50:46
Speaker 1: six per thousand persons compared to what is it. It's
50:52
Speaker 1: like almost like it's like twenty one to twenty two
50:55
Speaker 1: per one thousand, since gender people, like, that's four times
51:02
Speaker 1: as much. And that's in the US. Now back in
51:09
Speaker 1: what was it? I think nineteen ninety two was the
51:12
Speaker 1: worst year on record for anti LGBTQ violence, right, And
51:19
Speaker 1: you would think, I mean, this is two years later.
51:21
Speaker 1: That's not a long time for things to change, because
51:23
Speaker 1: they didn't really and police they ended up reclassifying the
51:29
Speaker 1: case from like drowning to undetermined cause. But the LGBTQ
51:36
Speaker 1: community was furious that the police refused to investigate further
51:41
Speaker 1: and that many press outlets just did not cover her death. Now,
51:47
Speaker 1: Randy Wicker last saw Marsha on the second, but there
51:51
Speaker 1: were sightings after this, like Benny Tony. Benny said that
51:56
Speaker 1: eighteen Marsha arguing with a neighbor with prominent facial skill
52:00
Speaker 1: was known as Michael, and this was like pretty soon
52:03
Speaker 1: before her death. According to Tony, the man shouted home
52:07
Speaker 1: a phobic stars at her. There was a confrontation, he
52:11
Speaker 1: pushed her and he was like he like he was
52:14
Speaker 1: like cruising for a bruise and like he was ready
52:17
Speaker 1: for a fight. So Tony claims that later that day,
52:22
Speaker 1: this same man Like he recognized him because of the
52:24
Speaker 1: scars on his face, right, that he was in a
52:28
Speaker 1: local bar boasting that he had killed a drag queen
52:32
Speaker 1: named Marsha. Now, the day after Marshall's body was pulled
52:38
Speaker 1: from the river, Tony Like reported this to the police.
52:43
Speaker 1: He went straight to them thinking that this could be
52:46
Speaker 1: an important lead. But according to Tony and Randy Wicker,
52:53
Speaker 1: this never gets properly investigated. Now, there has been speculator
53:01
Speaker 1: that Marcia's death may have involved members of the New
53:04
Speaker 1: York Police Department, although no evidence has ever conclusively groven this.
53:13
Speaker 1: These suspicions, well, they'll shape by the wider climate in
53:16
Speaker 1: New York at the time. You've got the violence against
53:20
Speaker 1: LGBTQ people reaching like alarming levels. Right. These attacks carried
53:28
Speaker 1: out you know, by general members of the public and
53:33
Speaker 1: in many cases by police officers. Like this was discussed
53:38
Speaker 1: again in last week's episode. Now former Anti Violence Project
53:45
Speaker 1: director Matt Foreman Right, he described the period like of
53:50
Speaker 1: this time, saying that anti LGBT violence was at a
53:55
Speaker 1: peak and that year they had thirteen hundred reports of
54:00
Speaker 1: bias crime and eighteen percent of those were based on
54:04
Speaker 1: violence perpetrated by police an unrelating wave of attacks. Now,
54:09
Speaker 1: many of these crimes were never sold. Marsha herself had
54:13
Speaker 1: dedicated much of her activism to confronting street violence and
54:16
Speaker 1: seeking justice for Williams. Marcia was not afraid to throw
54:19
Speaker 1: a punch. Now, according to Randy, she understood the dangers
54:24
Speaker 1: that came with that, and shortly before her death she
54:29
Speaker 1: reportedly warned him that investigating assaults involving corrupt plice officers
54:34
Speaker 1: could get you muddled. Well, she didn't say corruptolice office.
54:39
Speaker 1: She called them dirty cops. Right. Getting involved in dirty
54:42
Speaker 1: cops can get you mudded. Now, there were reports of
54:47
Speaker 1: Marsha being seen on the fourth of July and the fifth,
54:51
Speaker 1: like really lay on the fifth, and she seemed scared.
54:59
Speaker 1: There were always so eyewitness accounts of two men following
55:02
Speaker 1: her to she made her way towards the direction of
55:05
Speaker 1: the West Village Peels that night. Now Randy he thinks
55:12
Speaker 1: he may have paid a part in Marshall's death because
55:16
Speaker 1: he was trying to get the reins of this Christopher
55:19
Speaker 1: Street Festival committee, which ran like a portion of events
55:22
Speaker 1: a gay pride. Now Randy was sure someone was pocketing
55:27
Speaker 1: funds like embezzling them from the committee. So he launched
55:30
Speaker 1: an investigation with like a PI and everything, spending five
55:35
Speaker 1: grand of his own money and allegedlyes the mafia had
55:42
Speaker 1: their fingers in many pies, including this one, and so
55:46
Speaker 1: they were profiting off of Pride. So he's investigating, and
55:50
Speaker 1: so is Victoria Cruise. Now she finds a message that
55:56
Speaker 1: was for Randy that he never got. And I'm paraphrasing
56:01
Speaker 1: here a wee bit, but it basically says, tell Randy
56:05
Speaker 1: what happened to Marcia will happen to him if he
56:08
Speaker 1: doesn't leave Jacques Gerin and read alone. Now, these are
56:13
Speaker 1: supposed to be members of some kind of criminal underground,
56:20
Speaker 1: and yeah, it's one of those threads that gets pulled
56:25
Speaker 1: and kind of leads you in a direction. And Marcia's death,
56:31
Speaker 1: it's actually thanks to Victoria Cruz that Marcia's death cause
56:36
Speaker 1: of death is changed, because initially it's like suicide by drowning,
56:42
Speaker 1: but it gets changed to undetermined. In two thousand and two, now,
56:51
Speaker 1: Marcia was found floating in the river. Her body was
56:55
Speaker 1: removed and left on the sidewalk for several hours before
57:00
Speaker 1: the coroner even arrived. In July in New York. Like hmmm,
57:09
Speaker 1: Randy and other witnesses confirmed that there was a hole
57:12
Speaker 1: in the back of Marsha's head and that she had
57:15
Speaker 1: other injuries. But when the coroner does show up suicide
57:21
Speaker 1: death by drowning. Now, an independent medical examiner reviewed the
57:27
Speaker 1: coroner's report, clarifying that damage to Marsha's body, including missing
57:32
Speaker 1: eyes and the hole in her head, could have occurred
57:35
Speaker 1: after death as the police removed her from the river.
57:40
Speaker 1: Here's here's the thing We're going to get into, like
57:43
Speaker 1: the whole report in a second. But typically when I
57:46
Speaker 1: hear of eyes be missing on a corpse, that's usually
57:49
Speaker 1: like animal activity, you know. But that is something that
57:53
Speaker 1: happens over days, not one night. Because she's found in
58:01
Speaker 1: the Hudson River during the day and it was very
58:06
Speaker 1: late at night that she was seen. So that's not
58:09
Speaker 1: even twenty four hours that she's been in the water
58:13
Speaker 1: and she's missing her eyes. No, So yeah, I'm not
58:23
Speaker 1: entirely convinced. Okay. So the coroner stated that she was
58:29
Speaker 1: breathing when she entered the river, which okay, does not
58:35
Speaker 1: roll out being unconscious or being chased or pushed into
58:41
Speaker 1: the water, and Victoria Cruz. She wants handles and show
58:45
Speaker 1: she gets her hands or she tries to get her
58:47
Speaker 1: hands on the autopsy. Right, she tried to get hands
58:50
Speaker 1: on the autopsy report. And this is where muspide sends
58:54
Speaker 1: as o're tingling because it's missing, it's lost, and when
59:02
Speaker 1: it's partial, like, it's hard going round and round in
59:06
Speaker 1: circles trying to get this basic medical document regarding a
59:09
Speaker 1: person's death, which should be simple, okay, And when she
59:14
Speaker 1: does get it, it's partial, it's incomplete. But the science
59:18
Speaker 1: were there discoloration of the body, which could be love
59:22
Speaker 1: of mortus, you know, which is when the blood pulls,
59:25
Speaker 1: which is when the body's in a certain position for
59:28
Speaker 1: a period of time. The blood sort of like it's
59:31
Speaker 1: not being pumped to the body, so it just kind
59:33
Speaker 1: of polls in an area. So if a body is
59:35
Speaker 1: lying face down for a long time, their face would
59:40
Speaker 1: probably end up looking more blue, like as if they're bruised,
59:42
Speaker 1: but it's not a bruise, it's just all the blood
59:45
Speaker 1: pulling like in that area. Now, there's also several hemorrhages
59:54
Speaker 1: in Marsha's brain. There's no mention of any signs of
59:58
Speaker 1: assault on the body, So like the these are questions
1:00:03
Speaker 1: we have to ask is what caused the hemorrhages? Was
1:00:05
Speaker 1: it natural causes? Did she have a condition? Could this
1:00:09
Speaker 1: have been caused by a seizure? Like what could have
1:00:13
Speaker 1: caused that? Why wasn't this investigated? Medical examiner? Like hmm, now, okay,
1:00:23
Speaker 1: I'm gonna throw my tinfoil hat in the ring heel
1:00:27
Speaker 1: whether Marshall was chased into the river, if she was
1:00:30
Speaker 1: intoxicated one way or the other, Like, I don't think
1:00:37
Speaker 1: a full autopsy was performed, and I think it wasn't
1:00:43
Speaker 1: performed because Marcia was HIV positive. Even if we roll
1:00:48
Speaker 1: out foul play, even if we say this was a
1:00:51
Speaker 1: tragic accident or this was something that Marcia did to
1:00:54
Speaker 1: herself intentionally or unintentionally, I believe the medical examiner did
1:01:04
Speaker 1: not do their job because there were eyewitness reports on
1:01:10
Speaker 1: Marshall's body, and that information didn't we make it into
1:01:14
Speaker 1: the report. Contemporary information by many different witnesses, information that
1:01:20
Speaker 1: was taken at the time. But none of this is
1:01:23
Speaker 1: in the report. Not even looks like etc. Or possible
1:01:36
Speaker 1: contusions to ABC like, none of that there. And so
1:01:43
Speaker 1: even if this was you know, an accident, if it
1:01:51
Speaker 1: was a tragedy, will not get in full answers because
1:01:57
Speaker 1: the medical examiner did not do the job properly. And
1:02:01
Speaker 1: the fact that a body was left out in the
1:02:05
Speaker 1: July sun for owls like, I mean, it's more, it's
1:02:14
Speaker 1: more than disrespectful. It's so horrible. Now I understand that
1:02:24
Speaker 1: there are many people who believe that Marcia ended her
1:02:28
Speaker 1: own life. One of the arguments was that like she
1:02:32
Speaker 1: was given away stuff before her death. Marcia gave away
1:02:35
Speaker 1: stuff constantly, like she was that person you like it,
1:02:39
Speaker 1: you have it, congratulations, good for you. But she had
1:02:46
Speaker 1: been struggling with mental health issues. She had breakdowns, she struggled,
1:02:52
Speaker 1: but she never had suicidal ideations. That was never part
1:02:55
Speaker 1: of the plan. And I fully, like on board the
1:03:02
Speaker 1: ship of it's either a tragic accident or it's a
1:03:06
Speaker 1: hate crime muddle, like I'm in either of these two.
1:03:11
Speaker 1: Like the thing about it is, apart from the fact
1:03:16
Speaker 1: it wasn't it just it wasn't investigated properly. If at
1:03:19
Speaker 1: least they did their jobs and they followed the leads,
1:03:22
Speaker 1: then we can at least go, well, you tried. And
1:03:26
Speaker 1: also now I have been told many times that black
1:03:34
Speaker 1: people just don't end their lives. It's not a thing
1:03:39
Speaker 1: they do, especially in a public way. If it's something,
1:03:45
Speaker 1: if it was going to happen, it was going to
1:03:47
Speaker 1: happen in a very private way. Now there's always a
1:03:50
Speaker 1: possibility that Marcia suffered some kind of episode, but again,
1:03:54
Speaker 1: if you don't investigate it properly, it's always going to
1:03:58
Speaker 1: be suspicious. And Marcia's death was suspicious, and she deserved
1:04:05
Speaker 1: to have it investigated fully, properly and without bigotry and bias.
1:04:09
Speaker 1: But Marcia was more than just her death. She was
1:04:15
Speaker 1: her life. She was an advocate for the disenfranchised, a
1:04:20
Speaker 1: mother to children, and a fucking pioneer. And her name
1:04:24
Speaker 1: deserves respect. And she lived for joy, to share joy,
1:04:32
Speaker 1: to give joy. When people say joy is resistance, it's
1:04:40
Speaker 1: Marsha P. Johnson. Her joy was resistance. Marcia's passing was
1:04:50
Speaker 1: mourned by everyone whose life she had touched. Three separate
1:04:54
Speaker 1: funeral services were held in her honor. Randy Wicker organized
1:04:59
Speaker 1: one in her Boken, New Jersey, her family held another
1:05:02
Speaker 1: in her hometown of Elizabeth, and a third service took
1:05:06
Speaker 1: place at the Church of the Village in New York City,
1:05:10
Speaker 1: where friends, activists and members of the LGBTQ community gathered
1:05:15
Speaker 1: to celebrate her life. A representative of Mayor David Dinkins
1:05:21
Speaker 1: attended the New York service and read a message that
1:05:25
Speaker 1: reflected on the weather that day. When it rains on
1:05:31
Speaker 1: the day of a funeral, it is a testimony to
1:05:34
Speaker 1: the life that person has lived. After the service, mourners
1:05:40
Speaker 1: walked together to the Christopher Street Peals, the place where
1:05:44
Speaker 1: Marsha's body had been found. There they held a quiet memorial,
1:05:51
Speaker 1: placing flowers and lighting candles in the Hudson River as
1:05:57
Speaker 1: they said the final goodbyes. And so ends the story
1:06:04
Speaker 1: on the life of Marcia PA Johnson. I always wanted
1:06:13
Speaker 1: to do Marsha P. Johnson justice. I always wanted to
1:06:19
Speaker 1: show her as a fully formed person. I think she
1:06:23
Speaker 1: deserves to have her story told in I wanted to
1:06:26
Speaker 1: end Pride Pride Month talking about her, talking about her joy.
1:06:33
Speaker 1: And often when we talk about history, there were so
1:06:37
Speaker 1: many horrible things consistently happening, one after another consecutively in
1:06:43
Speaker 1: a row, and there were moments and pockets of joy,
1:06:46
Speaker 1: and Marsha P. Johnson was one in her life. She
1:06:51
Speaker 1: was that pocket of joy, and she deserved better than
1:06:56
Speaker 1: what she got. She deserved joy, and I think I
1:07:06
Speaker 1: think we should all do something joyous from Marsha P.
1:07:11
Speaker 1: Johnson and and I actually want to thank before I finish,
1:07:19
Speaker 1: because it's it's Pride month. I want to thank every
1:07:21
Speaker 1: person who emailed me and your messaged me about about
1:07:27
Speaker 1: last week's episode about the AIDS crisis.
1:07:30
Speaker 2: That I did, and a.
1:07:34
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
1:07:39
Speaker 2: I got so many beautiful, lovely, wonderful emails and messages
1:07:45
Speaker 2: and you all said some lovely, kind, generous things, and
1:07:53
Speaker 2: I'm glad that I'm making some kind of a difference.
1:07:56
Speaker 2: I'm glad that you appreciate what I'm doing, and I'm
1:08:00
Speaker 2: hoping that I am giving the reverence.
1:08:04
Speaker 1: And consideration and the truth of it all. I am
1:08:12
Speaker 1: so lucky. I am so lucky. Life is hard, guys,
1:08:20
Speaker 1: life is hard. I'm listen, I'm struggling. I always am
1:08:23
Speaker 1: so I am as a person. But I am so
1:08:26
Speaker 1: lucky that you listen to me. I am so thankful
1:08:32
Speaker 1: that you listen to me. I'm so happy, and you
1:08:35
Speaker 1: know that's my joy. Okay, I mean, my kids are faine,
1:08:38
Speaker 1: They're nice, They're okay, I'm kidding. I love my kids.
1:08:41
Speaker 1: They're amazing. But I get real joy knowing that I'm
1:08:50
Speaker 1: doing something right, whether it's being your body doubling sort
1:08:57
Speaker 1: of sound as you're doing your laundry, or I'm helping you.
1:09:02
Speaker 1: You know, I'm being that constant you know, every Wednesday,
1:09:08
Speaker 1: there she has you know, there she is talking to
1:09:13
Speaker 1: me and here I am. I'm really glad to be
1:09:18
Speaker 1: here for you and whatever capacity that is. And I
1:09:24
Speaker 1: am I'm so fucking grateful, and I'm glad I could
1:09:31
Speaker 1: do some kind of justice to the history that people
1:09:37
Speaker 1: are trying to sweep onto the rug. And I won't
1:09:39
Speaker 1: stop because that's who I am as a person. I'm yeah,
1:09:43
Speaker 1: I'm getting emotional, and so I decided that with the recommendations,
1:09:49
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go for joy from a recommendation list this
1:09:54
Speaker 1: week things that make me happy. And these are my
1:09:59
Speaker 1: recommendations to you for watching Greece too, Okay Greece to
1:10:12
Speaker 1: you know what, the last third of the film it's
1:10:14
Speaker 1: not that great, but the first two thirds of that
1:10:16
Speaker 1: film gold mine, right, beautiful, fantastic. Frenchy disappears in the
1:10:22
Speaker 1: middle of the movie for no reason. Love that movie, right,
1:10:25
Speaker 1: Love that movie, really really obsessed with do it for
1:10:30
Speaker 1: our country, which is like just such such a me problem.
1:10:35
Speaker 1: But yeah, I let's bowl, let's bowl, let's rock and roll.
1:10:40
Speaker 1: It's all in my head now. Greece too, it's a
1:10:43
Speaker 1: it's a joy. It's a joy to watch Greece too.
1:10:49
Speaker 1: For listening. I am a really big fan of for listening. Okay, Okay,
1:11:03
Speaker 1: there's this song by Monty Python and it doesn't matter
1:11:07
Speaker 1: anymore because the money doesn't exist because it's it's a
1:11:12
Speaker 1: song called money, right, and it's all about all these
1:11:16
Speaker 1: different currencies and it's sang by I think it's written
1:11:19
Speaker 1: and sang by Eric Idyl, and it's basically, I've got
1:11:24
Speaker 1: ninety thousand pounds in my pajamas, I've got forty thousand
1:11:28
Speaker 1: French ranks in my fridge. Now it's all the year
1:11:31
Speaker 1: on now, so like it doesn't matter. But it's it's
1:11:33
Speaker 1: this really silly song about money and it's like a
1:11:36
Speaker 1: minute long, and I really love it. It's my it's
1:11:38
Speaker 1: one of my favorite like songs. You know, I should
1:11:41
Speaker 1: give you a second song that is also Joyce sale
1:11:45
Speaker 1: I V by Bewitched. Okay, so I I have I
1:11:50
Speaker 1: have a my metaphorical metaphorical, my metaphysical no, that's not right.
1:11:58
Speaker 1: My imaginary version board Okay, my imaginary vision board has
1:12:04
Speaker 1: me doing a live show in Canada on Saint Patrick's
1:12:10
Speaker 1: Day wearing a Canadian tuxedo with a member of the
1:12:15
Speaker 1: musical group nineties Sensation Bewitched. Okay, that's that's a plan
1:12:23
Speaker 1: that us on the vision board because I think it
1:12:26
Speaker 1: would be really funny. No, no, no other reason. And
1:12:32
Speaker 1: for reading, oh my goodness, for reading reading for joy?
1:12:39
Speaker 1: Actually what do I read for joy? No? Everything I
1:12:43
Speaker 1: read for joy is kind of depressing. Actually, you know what,
1:12:47
Speaker 1: This is really bad. Okay. So I don't know if
1:12:52
Speaker 1: you know this, but in Ireland we have like a
1:12:55
Speaker 1: really good relationship with death, like a really strong relationship
1:12:59
Speaker 1: with death. And I had this book years ago and
1:13:04
Speaker 1: it's called Last Laughs and Epitaphs, and it's all about
1:13:08
Speaker 1: the funny like last words of people and the funny
1:13:11
Speaker 1: quotes on their graves. It's very funny. I promise you
1:13:15
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a great circle of life, very funny.
1:13:18
Speaker 1: Now with the hat, thank you so much, and I
1:13:22
Speaker 1: will see you next week when we start talking about
1:13:26
Speaker 1: Morrocan history. And thank you for listening. Arios au revoir
1:13:34
Speaker 1: av them my friends. Oh, bye bye,