LGB HistoryAn eye-opening interview with Sylvia Rivera in a 1992 book, Making History

submitted by JulienMayfair from (self.LGBDropTheT)

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[–]Q-Continuum-kin 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

The difficulty with using the first hand account of this person is clearly that they are not a reliable source but as you state, the part where there is absolutely no concept of self existing as female is pretty clear. Drug addicts do tent to have difficulty remembering how events transpired or how much time is passing but it is certainly interesting how he uses incidental language to describe things. Ie that lesbian hated all men (like me). It shows that there is absolutely zero concept of a "gender identity" going on.

[–]JulienMayfair[S] 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

The thing about memory is that when Rivera found out that people of a scholarly bent were researching a history of Stonewall, he approached gay men he knew would be interviewed and asked them to lie for him and to say he had been there on the first night. Given that, I think that Rivera had a pretty clear idea that he had been on-record telling a story that was now likely to be revealed as false.

[–]PriestTheyCalledHimBisexual 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

That is really not surprising at all.