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Maggie Baez 🇺🇸🇵🇷 @MsWitsEnd
, 7 tweets, 4 min read Read on Twitter
🏳️‍🌈TODAY’S PRIDE HERO🏳️‍🌈
Sylvia Rivera (1951-2002)
Co-Founder of Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR)
Member of the Gay Liberation Front and Gay Activists Alliance

(Photo courtesy of Legacy Project) #LGBTVoices
Sylvia Rivera was an American gay & transgender activist. Of Puerto Rican & Venezuelan descent, she was born/raised in New York City. Homeless at 11, Sylvia earned her pedigree on NYC streets as a drag queen and sex worker.
Photo Credit: Kay Lahusen #LGBTVoices
She fought for Civil Rights, against Vietnam War and for Women's Rights. At Stonewall, she was one of our voices. Admittedly, I'd not heard of Sylvia when I drew her name for our #LGBTVoices project.
Photo Credit: (AP Photo/Justin Sutcliffe)
But reading about her thru google search, I found outspoken vigor that deserves to be honored. Sylvia spent most of her life fighting for human rights. It didn't matter whether it was for women, men, civil, gay. She fought FOR HUMAN RIGHTS. #LGBTVoices
She was a protector of youth, homeless, trans, people of color. Intersectional is used a lot in explaining social injustice. Sylvia could have given a lecture on the multi-faceted centralized discrimination she was present for & fought against. #LGBTVoices
Sylvia spent a large portion of her life being marginalized by society but she didn't let it stop her. She didn't do it to be remembered. She didn't do it for glory. She did it because she believed in the idea that EVERYONE deserved equality. #LGBTVoices
Photo Credit: Luis Carle
Sylvia is of Puerto Rican descent but isn't someone you learn about in any history class taught in PR or in ANY US history course I took. If I could go back in time, I'd meet her and say THANK YOU.

#LGBTVoices
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More from @MsWitsEnd see all

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🏳️‍🌈TODAY’S PRIDE HERO🏳️‍🌈
Leonard P. Matlovich (1943-1988)
Vietnam War Veteran, Purple Heart & Bronze Star recipient
Civil Rights Activist
"Maybe not in my lifetime, but we are going to win in the end."
(Photo cred: Ted Sahl)
#LGBTVoices
If you are LGBTQ in the military, thank US Air Force Technical Sergeant Leonard P. Matlovich for the gigantic 1st step.
In March 1975, Matlovich gave his commanding officers a letter outing himself as a homosexual.
Photo Cred: Leonard Matlovich Papers
#LGBTVoices
He did this to challenge the military ban on gays. He didn't shy away from a battle - not in Vietnam where he earned the Purple Heart and not for equality. He graced the cover of Time Magazine in uniform. He became a symbol.
Photo Cred: Ted Thai
#LGBTVoices
Read 7 tweets

Related threads

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Happy #Pride
I was expelled from my all-girls high school for being a #lesbian & put in a mental hospital for #conversiontherapy.

I became an #LGBT activist to prevent that from happening to other girls like I was.
Yet conversion therapy is still legal.
Happy #Pride
I memorialize every #lesbian who died hidden in the shadows because of #homophobia, who was forced into compulsory heterosexuality, who was made to live a lie. You deserved better. We honor you by making a safer world for lesbians today. Amen.
🏳️‍🌈🖤❤️💜💙💚🧡💛
On #Pride I think of the #lesbian who became my mentor. She propelled me forward into lesbian #feminist writing. #AudreLorde opened a door for me I didn't know existed. I am so grateful she was in my life and left such a legacy for #lesbians.
lambdaliterary.org/features/oped/… …
Read 30 tweets
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🏳️‍🌈TODAY’S PRIDE HERO🏳️‍🌈
Sally Ride
(May 26, 1951 – July 23, 2012)

Sally Ride was an American physicist & astronaut. On June 18, 1983, she became the first American woman in space as part of the space shuttle Challenger mission.

#LGBTVoices
#PrideMonth
Sally was born and grew up in CA. She obtained her PhD from Stanford in Physics.

Ride was one of 8,000 people who answered an ad in the Stanford student newspaper seeking female applicants for the space program. She was 1 of 35 women chosen by NASA in 1978.

#LGBTVoices
#Pride
After traveling to space during the Challenger mission in 1983 and 1984, Sally became the inspiration for several generations of girls,(including yours, truly) to follow their science and technology dreams, an area that had been long deemed "boys only."

#LGBTVoices
#PrideMonth
Read 13 tweets
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🏳️‍🌈TODAY’S PRIDE HERO🏳️‍🌈

Lynn Ann Conway
Born January 2, 1938

Lynn is an American computer scientist, electrical engineer, inventor, and transgender activist
@lynnconway

#LGBTVoice
Lynn grew up in White Plains, New York. Conway was shy and experienced gender dysphoria as a child. She became fascinated and engaged by astronomy and did well in math and science in high school.
Lynn is notable for a number of pioneering achievements, including the Mead & Conway revolution in VLSI design, which incubated an emerging electronic design automation industry.
Read 20 tweets
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🏳️‍🌈TODAY’S PRIDE HERO🏳️‍🌈
James “John” Finley Gruber (1928 - 2011)

James Gruber was an original member, co-founder, and helped name the Mattachine Society, one of the earliest homophile organizations in the United States.
#LGBTVoices
James considered himself bisexual. He enlisted in the US Marine Corps in 1946 at the age of 18, was honorably discharged in 1949. Gruber met & began a relationship with Konrad Stevens. He attended meetings of an early homophile organization called the “Society of Fools”
James Gruber, following a conversation with Harry Hay about Medieval masque troops known as “mattachines” and suggested renaming the “Society of Fools” to Mattachine Society. The Mattachine Society was a single national organization headquartered in Los Angeles.
Read 6 tweets
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🏳️‍🌈TODAY’S PRIDE HERO🏳️‍🌈
Martin Duberman (b. August 6, 1930)

Martin is an American historian, biographer, playwright, gay rights activist and radical.

Writer or editor of over 25 books, Martin founded the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies at CUNY.

#LGBTVoices
Duberman grew up near New York City & earned a B.A. from Yale and a Ph.D. from Harvard. He taught history at Yale, then Princeton, where he became involved in activism. He signed the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” in 1968, refusing to pay taxes to protest the Vietnam War.
During those years, Martin endured years of therapy in an attempt to “cure” his homosexuality. With the advent of Stonewall and the gay liberation movement, Martin embraced his homosexuality and incorporated it into his activism. He came out in a New York Times essay in 1872.
Read 10 tweets
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TODAY’S PRIDE HERO
José Julio Sarria (1922 - 2013)

I am far from an expert on Jose but learning about him gave me a great appreciation for all he has accomplished for the LGBTQ community. He was one of America’s gay rights pioneering leaders.
#LGBTVoices
Jose was a proud World War II veteran and the very first openly gay candidate to run for public office in North America. Born in San Francisco in 1922. His father showed no interest in his son’s life.
After being discharged from his duty in World War II, he studied to become a teacher and frequented the Black Cat where he began performing in drag.
Read 7 tweets

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