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[–]MarkTwainiac 37 insightful - 1 fun37 insightful - 0 fun38 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Marsha P. Johnson definitely did not start the Stonewall riots, as he wasn't even in the neighborhood when they started.

Johnson also was a gay male transvestite - not "trans" as it's meant today. Back when Stonewall happened, the term "transgender" wasn't used coz the propagandists for unbridled male libertinism known as queer theory who eventually invented the term for nefarious political purposes hadn't come up with it yet.

In 1969, the men who got surgeries to reconfigure their genitals to vaguely mimic female genitals were known as transsexuals. Gay men who impersonated women as personal expression, because they had internalized homophobia, because it got them off, or because they were prostitutes serving a niche clientele with particular proclivities were known as transvestites. Gay men who mockingly impersonated women to put on an outré form of male dominance display intended as entertainment mainly for other misogynistic gay men were known as drag queens. Straight men who impersonated women because of their sexual fetish were known simply as cross-dressers. Everyone back then - psychologists, sexologists, people involved in sexual liberation movements, and the general public - knew that these different types of men existed, and knew the distinctions between them. It's only very recently that they became all lumped in together under the one unifying umbrella labelled "trans."