A pioneering figure in the gay and trans liberation movement, Sylvia Rivera was born in New York City and became an orphan early in life after her mother died and her father abandoned the family. Rejected by her biological family, Rivera lived on the streets as a homeless youth and underage sex worker before being taken in by New York’s drag queen community. She became active within that community and organized with the Gay Liberation Front in the wake of the Stonewall riot. A close friend of Marsha P. Johnson, Rivera worked with Johnson on a number of initiatives, such as helping to found Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries and pushing for passage of the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act in New York State. She fought for inclusion of drag queens and trans people in the LGBT movement, despairing at the movement’s assimilationist orientation at the turn of the century. She died in 2002 of complications from liver cancer.
“I am Sylvia Rivera. Ray Rivera left home at the age of 10 to become Sylvia. And that’s who I am.”
