LGB HistoryMalcolm Michaels Jr.'s (AKA Marsha P. Johnson) 1992 Obituary, from The Advocate

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[–]lovelyspearmintLesbeing a lesbian 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

TRAs would just say that transgender wasn't used as a term at the time, or that the newspaper was dead naming him.

[–]reluctant_commenter 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

And then say: "We're not just cross-dressers!"

[–]odiusgay man[S] 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

To which I would say

  1. Transsexual was though, and transgender was gaining usage
  2. I don't think The Advocate, the most prominent gay and lesbian magazine in the US, would do any such thing

BTW, if anyone can find a source from when MPJ was alive calling her transgender or transsexual, or better, one of Marsha herself saying it, I'd love to see it, because literally everyone I've seen has called her gay, a drag queen, or a transvestite.

[–]Riothamus 9 insightful - 2 fun9 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 2 fun -  (5 children)

That reads a hell of a lot more like your typical "Local Man Found Dead" obituary than one befitting an actual civil rights icon.

TRAs literally tokenized a dead man, didn't they?

[–]reluctant_commenter 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

TRAs literally tokenized a dead man, didn't they?

Yeah. They really did. It's bewildering.

If anyone encounters someone IRL who believes these lies about Malcolm Michaels Jr., I've had good results in changing people's minds by sharing the NYT's video about Stonewall. I'll find the link in a second.

edit: https://www.spd.org/video-of-the-week/new-york-times-stonewall

[–]Riothamus 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I'm still struck by just how disrespectful all of this is. Lesbians have been almost entirely written out of the story in spite of Storme Delarverie's prominent role.

It just seems like the TRAs crafted a trans hero narrative out of whole cloth and then attached it to a dead black drag queen who was present at Stonewall during some point of the riot. He can't set the record straight from The Hereafter and nobody has to pay any royalties to use his likeness.

They stole the hero role from a black lesbian who was an actual activist and productive member of society and reassigned it to a long-dead homeless prostitute.

[–]odiusgay man[S] 6 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

Yeah. Compare that to the NY Time's 2018 obit. They paint her as some grand civil rights leader, but the paper only referenced her twice before in its history: once in an interview with Sylvia Rivera in the 90s, and in 2002 in Sylvia Rivera's obituary. The reality of who she was vs. what people believe about her is shocking.

[–]Dromedary 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

It's crazy. Fred Sargeant who was at Stonewall says Malcolm was well known in the gay community as "a "mentally ill thieving drug addict"- his words!- who most assuredly was not there the first night of the Stonewall riots. So,..famous in his own way in the gay community!

[–]odiusgay man[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yeah, that's the impression I got from reading the primary sources. She certainly wasn't the "trans civil rights icon" she's painted as today. BTW, do you have that source from Fred Sargeant?

[–]ChunkeeguyTeam T*RF Fuck Yeah 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

This needs to be posted daily on every gay/trans/lgbtiqqxyzwtf sub on Preddit.

[–]barnarnasis this tv show my friend? 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I still want to know what caused the push to make him the face of all things LGBT. I haven't looked too far into it, just checking google trends and an advanced twitter search and my phone. I don't know how accurate the google trends info is, since it looks like there was a big spike in 2016 but there's also a note that says there was a change to the way they collected the data at that time. Twitter showed mentions back to 2012 but most of the chatter was related to the movie Stonewall from 2015. It's not a complete look since tweets and accounts get deleted, unfortunately.

Literally rewriting history to push a narrative but we're the baddies amirite

[–]Riothamus 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Let's say you constructed a hero narrative to give all the credit for a significant event to someone who could have been plausibly aligned with your pet cause. Let's say you were going for maximum intersectional sympathy points.

Who could be better than a smiling dead homeless black cross-dressing prostitute? A dead man can't dispute your version of his life story. He was estranged from his family. He also lacked close friends who could have kept him off the streets. As a rule homeless prostitutes lack strong social networks who know them as they truly are.

Malcolm Michaels/Marsha P. Johnson was just the perfect cipher for trans activists.

[–]barnarnasis this tv show my friend? 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I guess I'm focusing too much on finding a root cause lol. What matters is it's a lie that's been allowed to take over and I honestly don't know if it's even possible to shut down anymore.