Rivera, was known for her brashness and compassion.
By INGA SORENSEN
The street can breed a mean streak, and it can take you down.
For Sylvia Rivera, it did neither. Sure, folks who knew her over the years say she could be tough, to put it mildly. She was, after all, orphaned at the age of 3 and hustling on Gotham�s unrelenting streets by her early teens. She was, for so many years, one tenacious street queen; appropriately, she was among the fed-up queers rebelling at the Stonewall Inn in 1969.
But for Rivera the rebelling didn�t stop there. Despite a longtime relationship with booze and drugs, and occasional bouts of homelessness, Rivera consistently spoke up for those lingering on society�s fringes. On Tuesday, Feb. 19, that voice was silenced when Rivera died of complications from liver cancer, said Rev. Pat Bumgardner of the Metropolitan Community Church of New York, where Rivera, 50, was coordinator of the food pantry. Bumgardner and Rivera�s partner, Julia Murray, were with Rivera when she died at Saint Vincent�s Hospital in Manhattan.
"The last hour and a half of her life she just struggled so hard to live. She moved constantly in the bed, on the floor, in the chair. Up and down. She never gave up. Her spirit never gave up, and she was amazingly conscious through the entire dying process. I don�t think in all of my years I�ve ever seen somebody go out with that level of consciousness," said Bumgardner. "That was Sylvia -- eyes wide open."
A rebellious and caring heart
Rivera, born in the Bronx as Ray Rivera, understood firsthand the perils of hustling on the streets. Still practically a youngster herself, Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson opened a shelter on the Lower East Side called STAR House, Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries, to help kids on the street beat the odds of getting killed or dying of a drug overdose.
"She worked the streets to support herself, and worked the streets so other homeless kids wouldn�t have to," said Bumgardner. "She�d take them in and feed them and house them, and work herself, so they wouldn�t have to.
"I don�t say this lightly," she added, "and I don�t want it to be misused, but she had that Mother Teresa quality, and I don�t mean to make her this nice warm person, because Sylvia was definitely a product of the streets. She never lost that street edge, or street sense -- in some way I think that�s part of her strength -- but she had this amazing capacity to be in the life with people. Not just have compassion, but to be there with them. I think if you can do that, then a kid working the streets becomes you working the streets, and you want to save them from that."
Feeling �sold out�
While the shelter�s existence was short-lived, Rivera�s commitment to gay and trans people was steadfast throughout her life.
She participated in the original Christopher Street Liberation Day March in 1970, and joined in every New York City pride since. In the early 1970s, she was involved with the Gay Activists Alliance, which was working toward passage of a gay civil rights bill in New York City.
So supportive was Rivera of that effort that she reportedly scaled the walls of City Hall in a dress and spiked heels in an attempt to gain access to a closed door vote on the original bill.
But Rivera�s enthusiasm turned to anger when some gay activists supported the exclusion of trans people in order to make the measure more palatable to politicos and the public.
(Gay New Yorkers obtained citywide protections more than a decade later, while transgendered and gender-variant New Yorkers are still struggling for those same rights.)
Rivera was also booted off the stage at a gay political rally in the early 1970s because some gay and lesbian activists deemed drag queens unacceptable.
"Sylvia demanded to speak, and she fought her way to the podium and there was a scuffle," recounted longtime activist Bob Kohler, a close friend of Rivera for more than three decades, "and there was a picture of Sylvia that was circulating and she was sitting at the podium, and she had blood on her face and she was crying. And that was the only time I�ve seen her cry."
According to Kohler, Rivera felt abandoned by the community, and she often expressed her belief that trans folks had been left in the back of the bus by their gay counterparts.
"It was a painful realization," Kohler said.
Rivera then moved to Westchester and for several years worked as a food service technician for the Marriott Corporation.
In the early 1990s, she was back in Gotham, sans employment and shelter, and living on a West Village pier. Five years ago she moved into Transy House, the informal name for a group of transsexual and transgendered friends living together in Brooklyn. She found a deep love with Julia Murray, also of Transy House, kicked her substance abuse habit, and was back into queer activism full throttle.
Rivera got active in a variety of queer groups, including the Metropolitan Gender Network, MCC, and her renamed and reinvigorated Street Transgender Action Revolutionaries. One of STAR�s first ventures was to organize a vigil for Amanda Milan, an African-American transgendered woman stabbed to death near the Port Authority last year.
"The thing that Sylvia had that was unique is that she came from the streets. She had that experience of not being middle class. Another thing was that she was Hispanic, so she could easily relate with people of color. And thirdly, Sylvia was not just a leader in the trans community. She was known throughout the GLBT community," said Rusty Moore, who started Transy House, which was fashioned after STAR House. "She was also direct and honest. A lot of activists don�t have that direct honesty that Sylvia had."
Last year, Rivera was at City Hall adamantly calling for passage of a city trans rights bill. And earlier this month she orchestrated a picket in front of the Village headquarters of the Empire State Pride Agenda, a gay rights group, to protest the exclusion of trans protections in a statewide gay rights bill promoted by ESPA.
Several hours before she died, ESPA leadership met with Rivera in her hospital room.
"We had a productive discussion about how the Pride Agenda and various leaders of the transgender community could improve cooperation and communication," said ESPA Executive Director Joseph Grabarz, adding, "Sylvia had very strong beliefs and never hesitated to make them known. While we may not have always agreed with her, we certainly respected her."
Many honors
Rivera received lifetime achievement awards from many organizations, including the Puerto Rican Gay & Lesbian Association of New York, the Neutral Zone Youth Organization of New York, the National Transgender Advocacy Coalition, AmBoyz Organization, and the MCC-NY Recognition for Lifetime Activism Starting with Stonewall.
Three years ago, Rivera was an invited guest of the Italian Transgender Organization at the World Pride Celebration, where she addressed the World Pride Rally in Rome.
"Even in the queer community at large that had called her forth, she never really lost that sense of connection to the street and the people who live the hard life on the street," said Bumgardner. "For me, that was one of the most important things about her. She never forgot who she was or where she came from. She was a person of conviction."
Added the 75-year-old Kohler: "I�m alone know. I always had Sylvia. We were always out there together. It�s almost as if I�ve lost an arm -- but now I�ll be fighting for the two of us."
There will be a viewing at the Redden Funeral Home, 325 14th St. between 8th and 9th avenues in Manhattan, on Friday, Feb. 22, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Funeral services for Rivera will be held at the Metropolitan Community Church, 36th Street between 9th and 10th avenues in Manhattan, at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 26.
The service will be followed by a memorial in front of the Stonewall Inn, from which Rivera�s ashes will be carried in a horse-drawn carriage to the Christopher Street piers.
INGA SORENSEN, NYBlade, February 22
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