Black History Month Day 4: Marsha P. Johnson

February 4, 2017

Marsha “Pay It No Mind” Johnson was a large part of the trans and queer liberation movement in the 60s and 70s. She was more than an activist though, she was also a drag queen (she’s often described as the true drag mother and cited by RuPaul as the one who really paved the way for drag queens) and a sex worker. This is why she spent majority of her life trying to better the lives of trans youth, sex workers, and incarcerated queer people. She lived her life without fear of judgement from anyone based on her self-identification. The “Pay It No Mind” came to be when a judge asked what her middle name, which started with “P” stood for; this became her trademark phrase. She also once posed for Andy Warhol for a piece in his famous drag queens series. In 1992, Marsha’s body was found in the Hudson River and her death was ruled a suicide. That didn’t sit well with family and friends though who insisted that she never would have committed suicide and it took 20 YEARS for the police to reopen her case.

As Black people, when we say “Black Lives Matter” there should be no question that these Black lives includes those who identify as trans, gay, lesbian, bisexual, asexual, those that don’t identify as masc or fem, and all those in the LGBTQ+ community. Just as representation matters to those who identify as heterosexual, cisgendered Blacks, representation is equally important to those that identify in a different way or question their identity. Your words and your actions affect the lives of others that may be struggling with who they are due to society’s pressing need to label people. As Black people, we are constantly treated as lesser than, but when you’re Black and LGBTQ+ it can be harder thanks to hate from not only the melanin-deficient, but also from their own black community. We, as a whole, must do better and support ALL Black lives, not just straight ones.