June 10, 2025 • 48 mins
Watching Marsha P. Johnson get ready for a date feels like spying on a long lost auntie. On some level, that’s exactly who Marsha is as a mother in the fight for trans rights. But in her grainy home videos, she’s not a living legend. She’s just a human. Our debut episode cuts through myths and mysteries to uncover the complicated contradictions that made up Marsha’s life. Host Raquel Willis explores her own relationship with LGBTQ+ history and ancestors like Marsha, while friends of Marsha along with historians shed light on her story. We’re lucky that Marsha spoke for herself too and we’ll get to know her in her own words.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Afterlives is a production of iHeart Podcasts and The Outspoken
podcast Network in partnership with the School of Humans. Just
the Heads Up, The following episode discusses mental illness and suicide.
Take care while listening.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
No, we're wearing this hat and wearing this God, maybe
I should wear blue tonight.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
This is Marsha P. Johnson and she's styling the perfect
outfit for an upcoming date. Turn Around on TV, Marsha's
hanging out in the kitchen with her roommate Randy on
a home video from nineteen eighty seven. She flits around
in the doorway between the cabinets and the stove.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Did you see this morning's treatment?
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Didn't you love that?
Speaker 1 (00:58):
What was this morning's treatment? Oh yeah, she had her Valentine's.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
Outstod on today.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Marcia's dark hair is cly in short and her attire
is serving all kinds of eighties. She's tucked a plaid
shirt into her jeans and on top is a purple
and white striped sweater vest stripes some plaid. Yeah, our
girl is fearless. Marcia sets her hand on Randy's shoulder
(01:27):
like she's about to share some good gossip.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Well, I'm going to the Valentine Ball where I got
another day tomorrow.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
Another day.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
She steps out of the kitchen to rifle through her closet.
Their friend Byron. As they are filming, Randy tells Marcia
to show him the fur coat he got her for Christmas.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
She goes in and they won't check it.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
It's no, they won't check it.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Can we expense the check? That's right.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
She puts the oversized coat on gently and rolls up
the sleeves. One is roped with a big flap of
fur dangling. Oh well, Marcia says, another item for the
fixed pile.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Show.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
In her tattered coat, stripes and plaids. Marsha's excitement transforms
a humble kitchen and hoboken into a runway. She's the
star of the show.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Yes, you're gonna be gagging. Just kt your heart ready
for heart failure.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
This video just tickles me. I feel like I'm spying
on a long lost auntie because on some level, that's
exactly who she is. If you don't already know, Marsha P.
Johnson is the icon of the LGBTQ plus movement. She's
considered the mother of the Fight for trans Riots. Legend
(02:48):
says she threw the first brick at stone Wall, you
know the riots that changed everything for queer rights, and
she was one of the first people out on the
streets demanding dignity for trans folks. In the early seventies,
she was a fashion icon. She was a part of
(03:10):
New York's downtown scene, and even had her portrait done
by none other than Andy Warhol. There are still people
who consider her a saint.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
She was fondly known as Saint Marcia.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
And now she's mainstream. Her name is honored by a
state park, and her face has become one of those
Google doodles. You can even buy Marsha p. Johnson merch
at Walmart. But like so many black trans people, Marcia's
(03:44):
life ended far too soon. She was found dead at
forty six years old, drowned in the Hudson River.
Speaker 5 (03:54):
Marsha was pulled out of the water light over.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
The edge here.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Many of her friends and family don't believe there was
a proper investigation into her death. For those who knew her,
it's still a shock and by some accounts, mysterious, But
her legacy has only grown and taken on a life
of its own. It's a travesty that we don't know
(04:22):
how exactly she died. I want to know how Marcia
became the icon she is, but most of all, I
want to know who she was in life as a
black trans woman. I'm here today because of Marcia. I'd
argue all of us in the LGBTQ plus community are,
(04:43):
and it's more important than ever to understand who she
was and how she changed the world. Today, trans people
are being discussed as if we're a topic up for debate.
Donald Trump and conservatives are targeting our basic human rights,
like the rights to bodily autonomy and self determination.
Speaker 6 (05:07):
On the day he was inaugurated, He's assigned an executive
order taking X gender marker off.
Speaker 7 (05:14):
Of passport, keeping men out of women's sports. This is
Trump's new executive order that he just signed today.
Speaker 8 (05:20):
One executive order defines sex in federal matters as only
male or female, while not recognizing transgender, non binary, or
intersex people or the idea that gender can be fluid.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Trump is trying to erase the T in the LGBTQ
plus movement, the very language that defines our existence. And
this isn't new. It's a reboot of what people tried
to do to Marsia in her time. During her life,
it was largely illegal to be any type of gay
(05:53):
or gender non conforming. Queerness was considered a mental illness.
As a person of color. Marsha didn't stand for that.
Here she is at a protest for gay rights in
front of New York's City Hall.
Speaker 6 (06:09):
Don I got by my gay rights?
Speaker 9 (06:11):
Now?
Speaker 2 (06:12):
I think it's that time the gay brothers and sisters,
God damn rights and especially the women.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
That was in nineteen seventy three, And she was right,
It's about goddamn time.
Speaker 10 (06:27):
They called me a legend because it's how many quaints
God that I'm one of the few quats is still
that few waits still that few quats?
Speaker 3 (06:37):
God is make the best of.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Every day an I'm Raquel Willis. And this is After
Live Season two, episode one, The Saint of Christopher Street.
Speaker 11 (06:54):
We stand in a symbolic shadow of some powerful folks,
don't we, Folks they tried to erase, They thought we
did not ever find.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
Their names and their stories. Well, we know about Marcia.
Speaker 10 (07:12):
Don't we.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
That was me in twenty twenty, speaking at the Brooklyn
Liberation March for Black trans Lives, standing in front of
an estimated fifteen thousand people. Something came over me. The
moment felt sacred. Those weren't rehearse lines. I felt Marcia's spirit.
(07:39):
I'm a journalist and an activist. I've spent my career
demanding a better world for trans people while elevating stories
of our humanity, our struggle, our resilience, and our beauty.
My work envision for collective liberation has been driven by
Marsha Legacy. She's someone I've looked up to for years,
(08:05):
but when I watch her in her kitchen getting ready
for a date, she comes alive in a new way.
In that grainy home video, She's not the living legend
she's become. She's just a human.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
Oh I'm eighty seven years old and condre to all
the rumors, I'm not dead yet.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
That's Randy Wicker again, now almost forty years after that
video was shot. In his kitchen. He's looking through some
of his mementos.
Speaker 4 (08:36):
This is Marcia really going out together in my favorite
picture that they look so proper.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Randy is still living in the same apartment he shared
with Marshall. Seeing his home is like walking into an
archaeological dig of the queer movement.
Speaker 12 (08:54):
Just a real mess.
Speaker 4 (08:56):
Oh this was fun my baby picture and here I
am in a newspaper. I got these flowers. This was
when I was a grand Marshall in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
The apartments walls are covered in photos, stickers, posters, buttons.
There are VHS, tapes and protest signs. Randy has his
own singular place as a pioneer of the movement. He
organized the first public demonstration for gay rights in the
United States and became the first openly gay person to
(09:33):
advocate for those rights on TV and radio shows. Not
to mention being roommates with Marsha P. Johnson a chapter
in itself.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
She sat right over on the floor over there in
front of that case. I didn't know Marshall at that time.
I guess I got to know where the next couple
of days or because she never left. She came in
for the one night and was here for the next
ten or twelve years.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
A lot has changed since Marcia slept on the floor
of a person she hardly knew.
Speaker 4 (10:06):
Marcia's become big business. This was a ornament and then
this candle they were sewing in Walmart for twenty five dollars.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Can you believe Randy has a sprawling shrine to Marcia.
As soon as you walk in the door, you're greeted
by a huge poster of her, and below it sits
a makeshift altar covered with candles and figurines. These angels
are those supposed to be Marcia. Was the flower crowns
(10:38):
on them?
Speaker 4 (10:40):
In my opinion, Yes.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
It's a collection of Marcia's. The poster, the candle, and
the ornament. They all show her smiling wide and adorned
with the flower crown. It's her signature look.
Speaker 5 (10:57):
Picture a halo of bright bloomskylo style.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Except on the streets of New York City. You can
find countless photos of her donning it online. You can
even see one on our cover art. A flower crown
was part of an everyday look for Marcia, or maybe
a night on the town. Sometimes it was part of
a costume for her performances with an off off Broadway
(11:24):
gay theater troupe, where the crowd regularly chanted her name.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
The Queen of.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Marcia isn't only celebrated in her afterlife. She was beloved
while she was alive, but that life wasn't all adoring
audiences and glamour. Before she was Randy's roommate. Marcia spent
years living on the streets. That's where she got her
raw materials. Workers in New York's Flower District would let
(12:08):
her sleep under their tables while they sorted through lilies
and roses. She would make her crowns with leftover cuttings.
Homelessness is part of her story, so is survival, sex work.
She was arrested hundreds of times, more times than she
could count. She suffered violence moving through the world, and
(12:28):
a time when being herself was essentially illegal. From sleeping
on the ground on West twenty eighth to appearing on
Pride Month March at Walmart, That's the almost unimaginable trajectory
of Marsha P.
Speaker 12 (12:43):
Johnson's mind boggling.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Rick Shoper was another friend of Marcia's. He remembers her
from Greenwich Village, where she asked passers by for spare change.
Speaker 7 (12:54):
Marcia came by and was like, oh, hi, dolls, could
anybody have a dollar. I'm a don queen, got a dollar.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Marcia herself echoes Rick's memories.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
I go on the street every day. It's about when
it sent out and I feel up to it. Getting
drags together and connect change for stogging access down.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
The street before finding refuge in the village. Rick's only
other option was to stay at his parents' house in
Jersey and act straight, but that was never going to happen.
Speaker 7 (13:26):
I came out at a time when being gay was
just unthinkable. It was just unthinkable.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Marsha and Rick met just out of high school back
in the sixties. Rick already felt like he was at
the cutting edge living as an openly gay person, but
when he saw how Marsha moved through the world, his
mind was blown.
Speaker 7 (13:47):
And then there's Marsha, you know, exploding this whole business
of like being a man.
Speaker 12 (13:52):
Just blow the shit up. You know. Let's put on
a dress. Fuck you, I'm wearing a dress.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
I was never saying my homosexuality once I became gay
in nineteen sixty three, I used to always brag about it,
tell my whole family.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
A lot of times you could find her sitting on
a stoop or by the piers along the Hudson River
in an era when queer people carried so much shame.
Marcia's confidence felt liberating to the people around her.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Johnnie got one life to live. You don't live it
to please other people. You gotta live your life to
please you, no matter what it is, if you're here
for a day, because tomorrow did not promise to anybody.
Speaker 7 (14:38):
There was something very reassuring about this person, because this
person simply did what they wanted to do, and there
was no hint of apology about it.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Honey, she wasn't just a revolutionary, She was a revolution
unto herself. People actually gifted her title the Saint of
Christopher Street. You heard Marcia introduce that way on stage.
She wasn't your ordinary saint though, more like a saint
of gay life. Christopher Street was a scene, no the
(15:17):
scene in the sixties and seventies. It was a centerpiece
of Greenwich Village, New York City's most historic gay neighborhood,
where queer people hung out and cruised where they had
at least a chance of being themselves.
Speaker 12 (15:32):
Christopher Street was where I met Marcia.
Speaker 7 (15:34):
I mean, Marcia knew my name and would occasionally call
me Rick, but mostly it was doll but All.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
How were you, Dall?
Speaker 3 (15:42):
You always helped me Dall.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
As gay as it was, it was still heavily police hell.
You couldn't even turn a look without getting hassled. By
the cops. If you weren't wearing three articles of clothing
that match your sex a sign of birth, you could
be sent to jail. Just being a queen wearing makeup
could land you in front of a judge with a
charge of upper head female impersonation. But Rick says Marsha
(16:11):
refused to let those restrictions get to her.
Speaker 7 (16:14):
There's not a tortured person who has every reason to
be tortured, every reason.
Speaker 9 (16:23):
I never have nothing ever till a day I die well,
I wanted by forbid.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
What does it mean to be known as the patron
saint of a street where you don't have human rights?
Marsha's life was filled with contradictions like this.
Speaker 10 (16:42):
There's so many queens, God that I'm one of the
few queens is still left from the seventies in the sixties,
they called me a legend in my own time because
they've been dying so fast.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
You know.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Simply surviving made her legend, and Marcia survived alive. She
was homeless for many years, though she said herself that
her community looked out for her and provided a lifeline.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
And I don't know how I could ever think those
hundreds of people that helped me in New York date
the ones that helped me to write I mean so
many people in its doors on Christopher's Street and stuff
have been giving me clothes and it give me change
every day.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
This saint did survival sex work, but she also performed
on stage internationally and was immortalized by some of New
York's most celebrated artists and photographers. Marcia was instrumental to
the emergence of the LGBTQ plus movement, but she was
also left behind. Trans people, especially trans women, were often
(17:55):
seen as a threat to progress instead of as a
critical part of it. A local paper, The Village Voice,
wrote that Marcia and her revolutionary friends were mainly into
horring and radical politics. It says in black and white
that they were quote looked down at in horror. Revolution
(18:18):
isn't pristine, It doesn't fit neatly into stories about progress. Plus.
Being a revolutionary pisses people off. I often wonder where
our movements would be today if Marcia had gotten to
fight for longer. But in nineteen ninety two, Marcia died.
(18:38):
It was right after the Fourth of July weekend. Marcia
wanted to get out of town. She needed a rest,
She felt like a mental breakdown was coming on. She
often carried an ominous feeling with her. She was just
forty six, but her friends remember Marcia talking about her
death frequently. She was always calling herself a dying queen
(19:04):
or talking about when she would cross the River Jordan.
Just days before her death, Marcia said she couldn't imagine
surviving twenty more years. This life was too hard.
Speaker 10 (19:19):
I'm not planning to live twenty more years. I don't
want twenty more more years of this wonderful life, dis.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Go and romance.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
On the evening of July six, just across from Christopher Street,
she was found floating in the Hudson River. Acquaintances from
the village stood around and watched the police pull her
body out of the water. A memorial took shape right
there on the pier. People brought candles, flowers, and spare
(19:51):
change to honor her. It was never determined how she
ended up there, whether she fell, jumped in, or was pushed.
Despite the conflicting circumstances of her life and death, Marcia's
afterlife has been gloriously abundant and transformative. But what is
(20:14):
Marcia known for exactly? And how does her legendary status
stand up to her lived reality.
Speaker 12 (20:23):
That's what you need to understand. This was not a cartoon.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
I went into this season on a mission to see
Marcia clearly, but even I still build her up. It
can be hard to look at an ancestor who I cherish,
who feels heroic to me, and still take a clear,
cold eye to the story of a complicated, contradictory life.
(20:48):
Marcia may be called a saint, but I wanted to
see the things that make her human.
Speaker 7 (20:55):
This is a person who had to deal with life
every day, just like you. Money for the path, train,
money for coffee, money for lunch, where do I eat,
you know, managing the friendships and so forth, so that
you have enough of what you need, so you have
your affinity group and you're not out of the cold.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
It was hard enough for Marsha to make it through
a day or a week. At times. She also struggled
intensely with her mental health. Sometimes she would have breakdowns
in public. Once some friends spotted her throwing deposit slips
up into the air at a local bank like it
was confetti. She would also use them to pay tribute
(21:39):
to who she called her father, neptune in the river.
On another day, she marched down the street bearing a
giant cross. When people pulled up to harass her, she
used the cross to break the car window. During one episode,
she shattered all the glassware at the apartment she lived
in with Randy, then spray painted the kitchen and her
(22:03):
own body. Sometimes people would call the cops and she'd
be hospitalized, or she would check herself into a facility.
Other times, wandering around during an episode, she'd get beat up.
Months or even years could go by without Marcia's showing
signs of severe mental illness, but the instability she faced
(22:25):
throughout her life could bring it on.
Speaker 7 (22:27):
You can imagine how much shit happened, you know, here
and there, and you know there's no support. There's no
support for people.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
When I was having my first breakdown and was just
said to.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
My lover die and I was living in the East
Village and that was did it started falling downhill?
Speaker 3 (22:49):
Yeah? And it's been falling up and downhill ever dance.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Anyone who has ever loved someone with mental health struggles
knows that they are difficult, chaotic moments and there's almost
never enough support.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Yo, I've been through a lot, and I'm stop going
through it.
Speaker 12 (23:09):
This is a flesh and blood person just.
Speaker 7 (23:12):
Like everybody else you know whose feelings could be her,
you know who had sexual desire or needs, just like you.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
To remember that Marcia was a poor, black, unhoused trans
woman grounds her life in reality, inviting us to recognize
our own messy, complicated lives in her story. To me,
it makes what she accomplished all the more amazing.
Speaker 10 (23:42):
I think they're poising that we've got our gay rights
all across America and correct the world.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
And God the right to be human beings just like
other human beings.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
In the first season of After Lives, we learned about
the life and legacy of Leileen Polonko. She was a
trans Afro Latina who died in twenty nineteen in the
Rikers Island Jail complex at the young age of twenty seven.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
But we are in a.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
War, don't get it twisted.
Speaker 5 (24:14):
Black and brown trans people have been in the war
since we were born.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
At a rally just days after Layleen's death, I stood
up and called out Marcia's name too, And so if
you are invoking the names of Marcia or of our movements,
fuck you. If you are not suffering black and.
Speaker 5 (24:45):
I was angry at that rally. I was angry that
Layleen was dead.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Marcia's familiar spirit came to me because I felt like
our social justice movements were letting her down. We honored
Laaleen's life in season one of the show and talked
about how her death changed the systems that ultimately killed her. Now,
as we watch transwrites come under attack across the US,
(25:15):
I want to honor Marcia. Marcia's story tells us something
about the struggles of being black and transcend and what
it still means today. Poverty, incarceration, violence, lack of access
to healthcare. All the hardships Marcia faced still plague our community.
(25:37):
She also encompasses the leadership, fearlessness, beauty, and joy that
I see every day in my trans and gender non
conforming siblings.
Speaker 9 (25:48):
How many years had they taken people to realize that
we're all brothers and sisters in the human beings and
in human mathews?
Speaker 3 (26:01):
I made how many years and take people to stay?
And I'm all it's rat race together.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Stick with us.
Speaker 5 (26:14):
Give me one second to figure out what the two
factor authentication on Tumblr is.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
All right, we're in word, I not one of my exes.
Oh that was a blasphem past jeez, welcome back to Afterlives.
While our team dove into Marsha's history this season, I
spent some time digging into my own past and it
(26:43):
wasn't easy. I had to open my old tumblr. So
the one that I am signing into is called Black
Feminist Thoughts, So it's thhot, Oh, young Rocqueu. I first
signed on too Tumblr in twenty ten when I was
(27:03):
a freshman at the University of Georgia. My producers recorded
me while I looked back through these invaluable archives. These
are just like FaceTime images. I colored my hair for
the first time, so it was a bright red, like
(27:24):
Rihanna red because she was the goddess, you know, the blueprint.
This was right around the time I started performing in drag.
I was beginning to understand myself differently. There weren't many
openly black queer people at my school, so Tumblr became
away from me to connect with others. Finding photos of
(27:45):
Marshall online filled in a gap too. Imagine what it
would have been like for me, as a black person
to grow up and not know who Martin Luther King
Junior was until adulthood. Wait, there's an image of Marsha P. Johnson.
Marcia is proof that we've been here all along, says
(28:11):
Happy birthday, Marsha P. Johnson. Let's remember her dedication to
legendary trans and queer activism. Growing up, I had no
idea there was such a thing as queer history. I
didn't even know the word queer. I thought being gay
was just something that people called you as a joke
or slur. By the time I was a teenager, I
(28:34):
had enough Internet access to seek out queer chat rooms
and forums. I used to spend a lot of time
following Wikipedia down rabbit holes. That's where I first read
about the Stonewall Riots of nineteen sixty nine. I might
have seen Marsha P. Johnson's name, but I didn't know
anything about her. When I got to college and started
(28:57):
exploring my queerness, Tumblr became a and of unspoken safe space.
Instagram wasn't really a thing yet, and I wasn't going
to experiment with my identity on Facebook. My aunties were
watching still. I was kind of amazed to reopen my
Tumblr page and see just how much I was pouring
(29:19):
my heart out. I found this post from twenty eleven,
December thirty of twenty eleven.
Speaker 4 (29:28):
And.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
It says, so yesterday was a very interesting day. I
came out again to my mom and a circle of
my best friends I've known since high school. I'd been
out as gay for a few years, but this was
a new conversation. I needed to share the truth about
my gender, and I think I'm finally at the point
(29:52):
where it's become full blown transnist. But I will admit
there's still so much I need to figure out and
a lot of soul searching love, but it's been a
release to at the very least express the fact that
I don't identify at all with masculinity or malness in
their entirety, and so I'm ready. It's already been pretty
(30:16):
daunting so far, but honestly, I like challenges and I
know I'm up for this. Okay, Wow, baby trans people
don't get to experience baby trans or hell honey, It's
(30:37):
wild to read that in so many ways, who I
was going to be was still a blank canvas. Then
Marcia gave me a foundation confidence about what I was
realizing about my identity. And then there are two images
of her smiling with red lips that and her signature
(31:04):
kind of floral headpiece embellishments. I shared these photos on
my Tumblr a few years after starting my transition. At
the time, I still didn't have any other historical black
transfigures to look up to. Then there's probably the most
iconic to me, the image of her holding the sign
(31:27):
that says power to the people. It's a black and
white photo taken by Diana Davies in nineteen seventy. If
you want to see the image I'm talking about, you
can find a link to it in our show notes
or on our Instagram at Afterlives dot pod. In one hand,
Marsha's holding up that big sign and hand drawn letters.
(31:48):
Her other hand holds up a cigarette while a purse
hangs at her elbow. She's wearing a fur coat and
a wig that looks like it's been blown about in
the wind.
Speaker 6 (31:58):
Diana captures her smile, and I love that it's powerful
because you don't often see her not smiling.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
That's Judy Gara. She is the associate director of Collections
at New York's incredibly impressive and incredibly queer Leslie Lowman
Museum of Art. Side note, I'm a proud board member there,
and it's.
Speaker 6 (32:21):
That moment of letting her guard down with her cigarette
outside of the hospital, you know, having just had to
be so on and it's like that moment almost stolen
away for herself.
Speaker 5 (32:32):
Judy sat down with me at the museum to look
at a bunch of images of Marsha.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
Here Marcia is leaning against the wall of Bellevue Hospital
on First Avenue and twenty eighth Street in Manhattan. She
was there to protest the way doctors were trying to
quote unquote cure homosexuality with harmful practices like electroshock therapy.
Behind her is the window with bars on it.
Speaker 5 (33:01):
Seeing I guess this window with these bars, it really
drives home. I'm sure how that institution felt like a
prison at points, and on any other given day, Marcia
could have been behind those bars instead of outside of it.
Speaker 6 (33:22):
I mean, there's first hand experience there right.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Often when we see images of activism, photos highlight empowerment
and strength. But in my experience protesting, what I'm really
feeling most of all is anger or grief. This photo
of Marcia shows us those harder feelings. We're not just
seeing her as this fearless activist it's a window into
(33:50):
what she was really going through.
Speaker 6 (33:55):
There's the knowledge that medical care always fall short and
fails transfolks, and so I think, in many ways, that's
what this expression is. It's I'm bringing my personal experience
to this.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Marcia was checked into Bellevue both voluntarily and involuntarily throughout
the years as she struggled with her mental health. Understanding
that is essential to understanding who she was, even if
it clouds the picture most often painted of Marcia with
a smile and a flower crown.
Speaker 6 (34:27):
It's like the dual edge of myth. Right, like we
as trans people especially deserve our heroes and our myths,
but also like, okay, yes, we don't want to lose
the person. And so it's like, how do we then
do that by both honoring her life and not erasing
the struggle.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
After the break, we hear more from the person, and
during that struggle Marcia herself.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
And when I have apartment, I just suffered up to
all these people, and I don't care if I'm ripped
off or stereo or something like that. These are the
worldly things. I came here with nothing I'm leaving or nothing.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 10 (35:15):
I was no one nobody from Nowheresville until I became
a drag queen.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
We're back with Afterlives. We've already heard from one of
Marsha's roommates, a close friend, an art historian, and we're
going to talk to all kinds of people about Marsha
this season. But the most important person we need to
hear from and to listen to is Marcia herself.
Speaker 10 (35:44):
I've never been an extravagant type drag queen that can
go out to a very fancy story in town and
buy expensive dread.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Marsha may have been surviving by the skin of her
teeth at points, but she never said that. She always
had big dreams, and she declared them in that unmistakable
sing song voice, and I said.
Speaker 10 (36:09):
Honey, I'm gonna want to be a Hamburger jingling for
the rest of my life.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
I want to be a drag queen. I want to
be one of the world's biggest drag queens.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
These clips are from an interview with Marsha recorded by
Michael Cassino, who directed the documentary Pay It No Mind.
You can watch it on YouTube. This recording was supposed
to be a test run for the film, but just
days later, Marcia would be found dead. These are the
(36:43):
last words she shared with the world.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
There's a p in my name. Also they call me
Marsha Payte. Now my jest, I try and pay all
those things that happened to me in life absolutely no mind.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
That's how Marsia dealt with impossible circumstances. She let them
roll off her back whenever she could. She clung to
this phrase, this philosophy. Even as she recounts the hardships
of her life in this interview, she still smiles for
the camera, applies her makeup, and keeps pushing through.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
When I was young and naive, when I started wearing
tested at five years old, and I stopped for a
long time.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
Marcia moved out of her hometown in Elizabeth, New Jersey
in nineteen sixty three after graduating from high school. She
found her people, she found herself. But it was hard,
and I got out there.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
I learned to hustle the night, learned to go out
with different.
Speaker 9 (37:49):
Men, and I get waited on tables, and I've learned
how to divive.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
I wondered what her first night in the city was like.
How she decided where it was safe enough to sit
down and rust her eyes. How long it took to
meet someone else like her, someone who could show her
the ropes of this environment. I wonder how adrenaline and
exhaustion moved through her veins.
Speaker 3 (38:19):
It's a miracle I'm still here. I mean, how many
people gets to come and bring guys.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
A John even shot Marcia once and the bullets stayed
lodged in her spine for the rest of her life.
Speaker 3 (38:34):
Being a hooker is no easy business for no one.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
By the late sixties, she was making a name for
herself in the village. She was on stage and immersed
in a world of creatives and artists. She began living
her dreams.
Speaker 10 (38:53):
Honey, I walked right down and you all halts office
and walked in.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
He took some photos a group of soak screens and
called ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
Polaroids of Marcia and a blonde pigtailed wig and a
choker necklace became one of Warhol's famous silk screens. Iconic
like those Campbell soup cans or the images of Marilyn Monroe.
You'd think that sitting for a famous artist would have
changed something for her material conditions. I wish it had
(39:28):
today Those silk screens are worth tens of thousands of dollars,
but Marcia only got paid fifty bucks. She could walk
by her face in a fancy art gallery, but she
wasn't welcomed in. She was at the center of New
York City Zeitgeisy seventies art world, but it didn't change
(39:50):
her day to day life. The thing that's amazing about Marsha, though,
is that she changed other people's lives. She was struggling
to live, but what was hers always also belonged to
her community. Here's Marcia in a different interview recorded in
(40:11):
Los Angeles in nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
These are like young people that if you can grasp
them and give them food and the place to stay
and finance to you know, send them to a school
where they can get learn how to read and write something.
Some of them can make something matter themselves, but Holly,
anybody ever does that.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
Sure, she was out protesting and fighting for gay rights,
but she was also about creating a home, being a home.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
When I have apartment, I just offened death to all
these people, and I don't care if I'm ripped off
for a stereo or something like that. These are wely things.
I came here with nothing, I'm leaving with nothing. I
just let them take it.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
With her giving spirit and her deep desire to make
the world more just, Marcia and her friend and fellow
revolutionary Sylvia Rivera founded Star which stood for Street Transvestite
Action Revolutionaries. The Stars, as they called themselves, did sex
work to pay for an apartment that welcomed in queer
(41:22):
and trans kids from the streets.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
I mean a lot of people used to say a
lot of bad things about me, Like I was a
hooker and I worked on the streets. They used to say, Oh,
she's just a hooker and she works a state out there.
I would never just a hooker working on the streets.
I was a hooker working in the gay mom.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
Star House was a revolutionary dream, especially for the nineteen seventies.
Marcia knew in her bones that trans people had to
protect each other, to take care of themselves because no
one else was going to step in, and Sylvia couldn't
always pay the rent. In fact, most of the time
(42:04):
it just wasn't possible. They were frequently evicted, and sometimes
Starhouse was in the back of a truck, but they
found other apartments and never stopped finding ways to challenge
the status quo and give back to their people. Marcia
gave and gave and gave to others, and it came
(42:26):
at a high price for her own mental health.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
I mean, I have all these breakdowns from overwork and stuff,
and I was working very hard in Movement.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
I wish I could ask Marsha what she needed. I
wish I could make her a big meal and sew
up that fur coat she was wearing in her Hoboken kitchen.
I wish I could know what self care looked like
for her and what those moments of mental anguish felt like.
I wish I could know what she would have done
(42:56):
if she'd had a longer life. We're lucky that Marcia
spoke for herself and she did ask us for something.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
We've come a long way and gave movement, but we
got a long way to go. And I think that
all of us gay brothers and sisters just try to
keep on doing our bets, to hold each other's hand
and keep on going right through the aids, barbus and
everything to do. They'll decide the rainbow.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
She left us with a task, and this couldn't be
a more critical moment. To remember it. Trans rights are
being systematically stripped away, our rights to self expression, to
medical care, and to work free from discrimination. Our lives
(43:51):
are still on the line. The lives of our youth
are especially vulnerable, plagued by bigotry and shame. We need
to show them that there's a future where they can thrive.
We have to stay on the streets and remember that
(44:11):
Marcia is still alive in.
Speaker 4 (44:14):
US tis out cares under attack.
Speaker 6 (44:20):
I'm kind of sick of bigotry, aren't you.
Speaker 5 (44:24):
Hello.
Speaker 10 (44:25):
My name is Eli.
Speaker 5 (44:27):
I am a nine year old and I happen to
be trans. Now I am untife again because Trump is president.
Speaker 3 (44:36):
Under attack.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
We won't stand down. We've always been here and Marcia
is proof of that. Remembering her and understanding her struggles
and her resilience is a chance to find some desperately
needed strength and grounding. Marcia's story is a lesson in
(44:59):
humananity and care and survival and self love, a lesson
in never giving up. We can tear these systems down
and build something better. Marsha can be our guiding life.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
As you know what gay love means, don't you. It
means happy sharing. And I think if there was more
happy sharing in the gay movement instead of selfishness, my dear,
would be a lot further than we are today. I mean,
when people start sharing from the heart and giving from
(45:37):
the heart, it would make it a better movie than
a stronger movement than any straight movement could ever be.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
This season on Afterlives.
Speaker 7 (45:50):
Oh my goodness, she's strutting up there waving to the
policeman in the cars.
Speaker 4 (45:55):
It was one of the most liberating things that I
have ever done to.
Speaker 12 (45:59):
A Marsha with up.
Speaker 7 (46:01):
Missinabet turned and said, oh hello, miss Madonna.
Speaker 4 (46:06):
Marsha's genius.
Speaker 7 (46:08):
Marsh's an artistic genius.
Speaker 3 (46:09):
What have you been launder? I felt the show and
Amazonian guest star you.
Speaker 12 (46:15):
Would never kill usself.
Speaker 4 (46:16):
We knew that we forty Let's say I went to
heaven and Maranda Marsha is Sai Marsha. You became very famous.
You were on the cover of Time magazine one hundred
most Important People of the Century.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
Thank you so much for listening to Afterlives. Please leave
us a rating and review to let us know what
you think. After Lives of the production of The Outspoken
Network from iHeart Podcasts in partnership with School of Humans
I'm your host and creator Raquel Willis. Dylan Hoyer is
our senior producer and scriptwriter. Our associate producer is Joey Patt.
(46:54):
Sound design and engineering by Jess Krinchitic, story editing by
Julia Furlan, fact checking by Carolyn Talmage. Score composed by
Wisely Murray. Our production manager is Daisy Church. Executive producers
include me, Raquel Willis, and Jess Krinchich from The Outspoken
(47:14):
Podcast Network, Amelia Brock, Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and Elsie
Crowley from School of Humans and The Cats Company. The
image of Marsha in our show art is provided by
the Leslie Lohman Museum of Art Founder's gift p. Fifteen
dot six nine nine dot one zero six. A special
(47:35):
thank you to everyone who provided archival tape, including the
Randy Wicker and Marsha P. Johnson papers at the LGBT
Community Center National History Archive, Jimmy Camicha's Hot Peaches records
at NYU's Fells Library, and special collections Marcia nineteen ninety
two by Michael Casino and Marcia at Tony Nunziatis by
(47:58):
Michael Casino. Courtesy of Michael Casino. Skyler Baylor at Pink
Mantray Interview with Marsha P. Johnson, nineteen eighty eight from
one National Gay and Lesbian Archives at the USC Libraries
Afterlives is a production of iHeart Podcasts and The Outspoken
podcast Network in partnership with the School of Humans. Just
the Heads Up, The following episode discusses mental illness and suicide.
Take care while listening.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
No, we're wearing this hat and wearing this God, maybe
I should wear blue tonight.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
This is Marsha P. Johnson and she's styling the perfect
outfit for an upcoming date. Turn Around on TV, Marsha's
hanging out in the kitchen with her roommate Randy on
a home video from nineteen eighty seven. She flits around
in the doorway between the cabinets and the stove.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Did you see this morning's treatment?
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Didn't you love that?
Speaker 1 (00:58):
What was this morning's treatment? Oh yeah, she had her Valentine's.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
Outstod on today.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Marcia's dark hair is cly in short and her attire
is serving all kinds of eighties. She's tucked a plaid
shirt into her jeans and on top is a purple
and white striped sweater vest stripes some plaid. Yeah, our
girl is fearless. Marcia sets her hand on Randy's shoulder
(01:27):
like she's about to share some good gossip.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Well, I'm going to the Valentine Ball where I got
another day tomorrow.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
Another day.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
She steps out of the kitchen to rifle through her closet.
Their friend Byron. As they are filming, Randy tells Marcia
to show him the fur coat he got her for Christmas.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
She goes in and they won't check it.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
It's no, they won't check it.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Can we expense the check? That's right.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
She puts the oversized coat on gently and rolls up
the sleeves. One is roped with a big flap of
fur dangling. Oh well, Marcia says, another item for the
fixed pile.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Show.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
In her tattered coat, stripes and plaids. Marsha's excitement transforms
a humble kitchen and hoboken into a runway. She's the
star of the show.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Yes, you're gonna be gagging. Just kt your heart ready
for heart failure.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
This video just tickles me. I feel like I'm spying
on a long lost auntie because on some level, that's
exactly who she is. If you don't already know, Marsha P.
Johnson is the icon of the LGBTQ plus movement. She's
considered the mother of the Fight for trans Riots. Legend
(02:48):
says she threw the first brick at stone Wall, you
know the riots that changed everything for queer rights, and
she was one of the first people out on the
streets demanding dignity for trans folks. In the early seventies,
she was a fashion icon. She was a part of
(03:10):
New York's downtown scene, and even had her portrait done
by none other than Andy Warhol. There are still people
who consider her a saint.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
She was fondly known as Saint Marcia.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
And now she's mainstream. Her name is honored by a
state park, and her face has become one of those
Google doodles. You can even buy Marsha p. Johnson merch
at Walmart. But like so many black trans people, Marcia's
(03:44):
life ended far too soon. She was found dead at
forty six years old, drowned in the Hudson River.
Speaker 5 (03:54):
Marsha was pulled out of the water light over.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
The edge here.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Many of her friends and family don't believe there was
a proper investigation into her death. For those who knew her,
it's still a shock and by some accounts, mysterious, But
her legacy has only grown and taken on a life
of its own. It's a travesty that we don't know
(04:22):
how exactly she died. I want to know how Marcia
became the icon she is, but most of all, I
want to know who she was in life as a
black trans woman. I'm here today because of Marcia. I'd
argue all of us in the LGBTQ plus community are,
(04:43):
and it's more important than ever to understand who she
was and how she changed the world. Today, trans people
are being discussed as if we're a topic up for debate.
Donald Trump and conservatives are targeting our basic human rights,
like the rights to bodily autonomy and self determination.
Speaker 6 (05:07):
On the day he was inaugurated, He's assigned an executive
order taking X gender marker off.
Speaker 7 (05:14):
Of passport, keeping men out of women's sports. This is
Trump's new executive order that he just signed today.
Speaker 8 (05:20):
One executive order defines sex in federal matters as only
male or female, while not recognizing transgender, non binary, or
intersex people or the idea that gender can be fluid.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Trump is trying to erase the T in the LGBTQ
plus movement, the very language that defines our existence. And
this isn't new. It's a reboot of what people tried
to do to Marsia in her time. During her life,
it was largely illegal to be any type of gay
(05:53):
or gender non conforming. Queerness was considered a mental illness.
As a person of color. Marsha didn't stand for that.
Here she is at a protest for gay rights in
front of New York's City Hall.
Speaker 6 (06:09):
Don I got by my gay rights?
Speaker 9 (06:11):
Now?
Speaker 2 (06:12):
I think it's that time the gay brothers and sisters,
God damn rights and especially the women.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
That was in nineteen seventy three, And she was right,
It's about goddamn time.
Speaker 10 (06:27):
They called me a legend because it's how many quaints
God that I'm one of the few quats is still
that few waits still that few quats?
Speaker 3 (06:37):
God is make the best of.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Every day an I'm Raquel Willis. And this is After
Live Season two, episode one, The Saint of Christopher Street.
Speaker 11 (06:54):
We stand in a symbolic shadow of some powerful folks,
don't we, Folks they tried to erase, They thought we
did not ever find.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
Their names and their stories. Well, we know about Marcia.
Speaker 10 (07:12):
Don't we.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
That was me in twenty twenty, speaking at the Brooklyn
Liberation March for Black trans Lives, standing in front of
an estimated fifteen thousand people. Something came over me. The
moment felt sacred. Those weren't rehearse lines. I felt Marcia's spirit.
(07:39):
I'm a journalist and an activist. I've spent my career
demanding a better world for trans people while elevating stories
of our humanity, our struggle, our resilience, and our beauty.
My work envision for collective liberation has been driven by
Marsha Legacy. She's someone I've looked up to for years,
(08:05):
but when I watch her in her kitchen getting ready
for a date, she comes alive in a new way.
In that grainy home video, She's not the living legend
she's become. She's just a human.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
Oh I'm eighty seven years old and condre to all
the rumors, I'm not dead yet.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
That's Randy Wicker again, now almost forty years after that
video was shot. In his kitchen. He's looking through some
of his mementos.
Speaker 4 (08:36):
This is Marcia really going out together in my favorite
picture that they look so proper.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Randy is still living in the same apartment he shared
with Marshall. Seeing his home is like walking into an
archaeological dig of the queer movement.
Speaker 12 (08:54):
Just a real mess.
Speaker 4 (08:56):
Oh this was fun my baby picture and here I
am in a newspaper. I got these flowers. This was
when I was a grand Marshall in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
The apartments walls are covered in photos, stickers, posters, buttons.
There are VHS, tapes and protest signs. Randy has his
own singular place as a pioneer of the movement. He
organized the first public demonstration for gay rights in the
United States and became the first openly gay person to
(09:33):
advocate for those rights on TV and radio shows. Not
to mention being roommates with Marsha P. Johnson a chapter
in itself.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
She sat right over on the floor over there in
front of that case. I didn't know Marshall at that time.
I guess I got to know where the next couple
of days or because she never left. She came in
for the one night and was here for the next
ten or twelve years.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
A lot has changed since Marcia slept on the floor
of a person she hardly knew.
Speaker 4 (10:06):
Marcia's become big business. This was a ornament and then
this candle they were sewing in Walmart for twenty five dollars.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Can you believe Randy has a sprawling shrine to Marcia.
As soon as you walk in the door, you're greeted
by a huge poster of her, and below it sits
a makeshift altar covered with candles and figurines. These angels
are those supposed to be Marcia. Was the flower crowns
(10:38):
on them?
Speaker 4 (10:40):
In my opinion, Yes.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
It's a collection of Marcia's. The poster, the candle, and
the ornament. They all show her smiling wide and adorned
with the flower crown. It's her signature look.
Speaker 5 (10:57):
Picture a halo of bright bloomskylo style.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Except on the streets of New York City. You can
find countless photos of her donning it online. You can
even see one on our cover art. A flower crown
was part of an everyday look for Marcia, or maybe
a night on the town. Sometimes it was part of
a costume for her performances with an off off Broadway
(11:24):
gay theater troupe, where the crowd regularly chanted her name.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
The Queen of.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Marcia isn't only celebrated in her afterlife. She was beloved
while she was alive, but that life wasn't all adoring
audiences and glamour. Before she was Randy's roommate. Marcia spent
years living on the streets. That's where she got her
raw materials. Workers in New York's Flower District would let
(12:08):
her sleep under their tables while they sorted through lilies
and roses. She would make her crowns with leftover cuttings.
Homelessness is part of her story, so is survival, sex work.
She was arrested hundreds of times, more times than she
could count. She suffered violence moving through the world, and
(12:28):
a time when being herself was essentially illegal. From sleeping
on the ground on West twenty eighth to appearing on
Pride Month March at Walmart, That's the almost unimaginable trajectory
of Marsha P.
Speaker 12 (12:43):
Johnson's mind boggling.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Rick Shoper was another friend of Marcia's. He remembers her
from Greenwich Village, where she asked passers by for spare change.
Speaker 7 (12:54):
Marcia came by and was like, oh, hi, dolls, could
anybody have a dollar. I'm a don queen, got a dollar.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Marcia herself echoes Rick's memories.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
I go on the street every day. It's about when
it sent out and I feel up to it. Getting
drags together and connect change for stogging access down.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
The street before finding refuge in the village. Rick's only
other option was to stay at his parents' house in
Jersey and act straight, but that was never going to happen.
Speaker 7 (13:26):
I came out at a time when being gay was
just unthinkable. It was just unthinkable.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Marsha and Rick met just out of high school back
in the sixties. Rick already felt like he was at
the cutting edge living as an openly gay person, but
when he saw how Marsha moved through the world, his
mind was blown.
Speaker 7 (13:47):
And then there's Marsha, you know, exploding this whole business
of like being a man.
Speaker 12 (13:52):
Just blow the shit up. You know. Let's put on
a dress. Fuck you, I'm wearing a dress.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
I was never saying my homosexuality once I became gay
in nineteen sixty three, I used to always brag about it,
tell my whole family.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
A lot of times you could find her sitting on
a stoop or by the piers along the Hudson River
in an era when queer people carried so much shame.
Marcia's confidence felt liberating to the people around her.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Johnnie got one life to live. You don't live it
to please other people. You gotta live your life to
please you, no matter what it is, if you're here
for a day, because tomorrow did not promise to anybody.
Speaker 7 (14:38):
There was something very reassuring about this person, because this
person simply did what they wanted to do, and there
was no hint of apology about it.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Honey, she wasn't just a revolutionary, She was a revolution
unto herself. People actually gifted her title the Saint of
Christopher Street. You heard Marcia introduce that way on stage.
She wasn't your ordinary saint though, more like a saint
of gay life. Christopher Street was a scene, no the
(15:17):
scene in the sixties and seventies. It was a centerpiece
of Greenwich Village, New York City's most historic gay neighborhood,
where queer people hung out and cruised where they had
at least a chance of being themselves.
Speaker 12 (15:32):
Christopher Street was where I met Marcia.
Speaker 7 (15:34):
I mean, Marcia knew my name and would occasionally call
me Rick, but mostly it was doll but All.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
How were you, Dall?
Speaker 3 (15:42):
You always helped me Dall.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
As gay as it was, it was still heavily police hell.
You couldn't even turn a look without getting hassled. By
the cops. If you weren't wearing three articles of clothing
that match your sex a sign of birth, you could
be sent to jail. Just being a queen wearing makeup
could land you in front of a judge with a
charge of upper head female impersonation. But Rick says Marsha
(16:11):
refused to let those restrictions get to her.
Speaker 7 (16:14):
There's not a tortured person who has every reason to
be tortured, every reason.
Speaker 9 (16:23):
I never have nothing ever till a day I die well,
I wanted by forbid.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
What does it mean to be known as the patron
saint of a street where you don't have human rights?
Marsha's life was filled with contradictions like this.
Speaker 10 (16:42):
There's so many queens, God that I'm one of the
few queens is still left from the seventies in the sixties,
they called me a legend in my own time because
they've been dying so fast.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
You know.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Simply surviving made her legend, and Marcia survived alive. She
was homeless for many years, though she said herself that
her community looked out for her and provided a lifeline.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
And I don't know how I could ever think those
hundreds of people that helped me in New York date
the ones that helped me to write I mean so
many people in its doors on Christopher's Street and stuff
have been giving me clothes and it give me change
every day.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
This saint did survival sex work, but she also performed
on stage internationally and was immortalized by some of New
York's most celebrated artists and photographers. Marcia was instrumental to
the emergence of the LGBTQ plus movement, but she was
also left behind. Trans people, especially trans women, were often
(17:55):
seen as a threat to progress instead of as a
critical part of it. A local paper, The Village Voice,
wrote that Marcia and her revolutionary friends were mainly into
horring and radical politics. It says in black and white
that they were quote looked down at in horror. Revolution
(18:18):
isn't pristine, It doesn't fit neatly into stories about progress. Plus.
Being a revolutionary pisses people off. I often wonder where
our movements would be today if Marcia had gotten to
fight for longer. But in nineteen ninety two, Marcia died.
(18:38):
It was right after the Fourth of July weekend. Marcia
wanted to get out of town. She needed a rest,
She felt like a mental breakdown was coming on. She
often carried an ominous feeling with her. She was just
forty six, but her friends remember Marcia talking about her
death frequently. She was always calling herself a dying queen
(19:04):
or talking about when she would cross the River Jordan.
Just days before her death, Marcia said she couldn't imagine
surviving twenty more years. This life was too hard.
Speaker 10 (19:19):
I'm not planning to live twenty more years. I don't
want twenty more more years of this wonderful life, dis.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Go and romance.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
On the evening of July six, just across from Christopher Street,
she was found floating in the Hudson River. Acquaintances from
the village stood around and watched the police pull her
body out of the water. A memorial took shape right
there on the pier. People brought candles, flowers, and spare
(19:51):
change to honor her. It was never determined how she
ended up there, whether she fell, jumped in, or was pushed.
Despite the conflicting circumstances of her life and death, Marcia's
afterlife has been gloriously abundant and transformative. But what is
(20:14):
Marcia known for exactly? And how does her legendary status
stand up to her lived reality.
Speaker 12 (20:23):
That's what you need to understand. This was not a cartoon.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
I went into this season on a mission to see
Marcia clearly, but even I still build her up. It
can be hard to look at an ancestor who I cherish,
who feels heroic to me, and still take a clear,
cold eye to the story of a complicated, contradictory life.
(20:48):
Marcia may be called a saint, but I wanted to
see the things that make her human.
Speaker 7 (20:55):
This is a person who had to deal with life
every day, just like you. Money for the path, train,
money for coffee, money for lunch, where do I eat,
you know, managing the friendships and so forth, so that
you have enough of what you need, so you have
your affinity group and you're not out of the cold.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
It was hard enough for Marsha to make it through
a day or a week. At times. She also struggled
intensely with her mental health. Sometimes she would have breakdowns
in public. Once some friends spotted her throwing deposit slips
up into the air at a local bank like it
was confetti. She would also use them to pay tribute
(21:39):
to who she called her father, neptune in the river.
On another day, she marched down the street bearing a
giant cross. When people pulled up to harass her, she
used the cross to break the car window. During one episode,
she shattered all the glassware at the apartment she lived
in with Randy, then spray painted the kitchen and her
(22:03):
own body. Sometimes people would call the cops and she'd
be hospitalized, or she would check herself into a facility.
Other times, wandering around during an episode, she'd get beat up.
Months or even years could go by without Marcia's showing
signs of severe mental illness, but the instability she faced
(22:25):
throughout her life could bring it on.
Speaker 7 (22:27):
You can imagine how much shit happened, you know, here
and there, and you know there's no support. There's no
support for people.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
When I was having my first breakdown and was just
said to.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
My lover die and I was living in the East
Village and that was did it started falling downhill?
Speaker 3 (22:49):
Yeah? And it's been falling up and downhill ever dance.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Anyone who has ever loved someone with mental health struggles
knows that they are difficult, chaotic moments and there's almost
never enough support.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Yo, I've been through a lot, and I'm stop going
through it.
Speaker 12 (23:09):
This is a flesh and blood person just.
Speaker 7 (23:12):
Like everybody else you know whose feelings could be her,
you know who had sexual desire or needs, just like you.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
To remember that Marcia was a poor, black, unhoused trans
woman grounds her life in reality, inviting us to recognize
our own messy, complicated lives in her story. To me,
it makes what she accomplished all the more amazing.
Speaker 10 (23:42):
I think they're poising that we've got our gay rights
all across America and correct the world.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
And God the right to be human beings just like
other human beings.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
In the first season of After Lives, we learned about
the life and legacy of Leileen Polonko. She was a
trans Afro Latina who died in twenty nineteen in the
Rikers Island Jail complex at the young age of twenty seven.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
But we are in a.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
War, don't get it twisted.
Speaker 5 (24:14):
Black and brown trans people have been in the war
since we were born.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
At a rally just days after Layleen's death, I stood
up and called out Marcia's name too, And so if
you are invoking the names of Marcia or of our movements,
fuck you. If you are not suffering black and.
Speaker 5 (24:45):
I was angry at that rally. I was angry that
Layleen was dead.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Marcia's familiar spirit came to me because I felt like
our social justice movements were letting her down. We honored
Laaleen's life in season one of the show and talked
about how her death changed the systems that ultimately killed her. Now,
as we watch transwrites come under attack across the US,
(25:15):
I want to honor Marcia. Marcia's story tells us something
about the struggles of being black and transcend and what
it still means today. Poverty, incarceration, violence, lack of access
to healthcare. All the hardships Marcia faced still plague our community.
(25:37):
She also encompasses the leadership, fearlessness, beauty, and joy that
I see every day in my trans and gender non
conforming siblings.
Speaker 9 (25:48):
How many years had they taken people to realize that
we're all brothers and sisters in the human beings and
in human mathews?
Speaker 3 (26:01):
I made how many years and take people to stay?
And I'm all it's rat race together.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Stick with us.
Speaker 5 (26:14):
Give me one second to figure out what the two
factor authentication on Tumblr is.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
All right, we're in word, I not one of my exes.
Oh that was a blasphem past jeez, welcome back to Afterlives.
While our team dove into Marsha's history this season, I
spent some time digging into my own past and it
(26:43):
wasn't easy. I had to open my old tumblr. So
the one that I am signing into is called Black
Feminist Thoughts, So it's thhot, Oh, young Rocqueu. I first
signed on too Tumblr in twenty ten when I was
(27:03):
a freshman at the University of Georgia. My producers recorded
me while I looked back through these invaluable archives. These
are just like FaceTime images. I colored my hair for
the first time, so it was a bright red, like
(27:24):
Rihanna red because she was the goddess, you know, the blueprint.
This was right around the time I started performing in drag.
I was beginning to understand myself differently. There weren't many
openly black queer people at my school, so Tumblr became
away from me to connect with others. Finding photos of
(27:45):
Marshall online filled in a gap too. Imagine what it
would have been like for me, as a black person
to grow up and not know who Martin Luther King
Junior was until adulthood. Wait, there's an image of Marsha P. Johnson.
Marcia is proof that we've been here all along, says
(28:11):
Happy birthday, Marsha P. Johnson. Let's remember her dedication to
legendary trans and queer activism. Growing up, I had no
idea there was such a thing as queer history. I
didn't even know the word queer. I thought being gay
was just something that people called you as a joke
or slur. By the time I was a teenager, I
(28:34):
had enough Internet access to seek out queer chat rooms
and forums. I used to spend a lot of time
following Wikipedia down rabbit holes. That's where I first read
about the Stonewall Riots of nineteen sixty nine. I might
have seen Marsha P. Johnson's name, but I didn't know
anything about her. When I got to college and started
(28:57):
exploring my queerness, Tumblr became a and of unspoken safe space.
Instagram wasn't really a thing yet, and I wasn't going
to experiment with my identity on Facebook. My aunties were
watching still. I was kind of amazed to reopen my
Tumblr page and see just how much I was pouring
(29:19):
my heart out. I found this post from twenty eleven,
December thirty of twenty eleven.
Speaker 4 (29:28):
And.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
It says, so yesterday was a very interesting day. I
came out again to my mom and a circle of
my best friends I've known since high school. I'd been
out as gay for a few years, but this was
a new conversation. I needed to share the truth about
my gender, and I think I'm finally at the point
(29:52):
where it's become full blown transnist. But I will admit
there's still so much I need to figure out and
a lot of soul searching love, but it's been a
release to at the very least express the fact that
I don't identify at all with masculinity or malness in
their entirety, and so I'm ready. It's already been pretty
(30:16):
daunting so far, but honestly, I like challenges and I
know I'm up for this. Okay, Wow, baby trans people
don't get to experience baby trans or hell honey, It's
(30:37):
wild to read that in so many ways, who I
was going to be was still a blank canvas. Then
Marcia gave me a foundation confidence about what I was
realizing about my identity. And then there are two images
of her smiling with red lips that and her signature
(31:04):
kind of floral headpiece embellishments. I shared these photos on
my Tumblr a few years after starting my transition. At
the time, I still didn't have any other historical black
transfigures to look up to. Then there's probably the most
iconic to me, the image of her holding the sign
(31:27):
that says power to the people. It's a black and
white photo taken by Diana Davies in nineteen seventy. If
you want to see the image I'm talking about, you
can find a link to it in our show notes
or on our Instagram at Afterlives dot pod. In one hand,
Marsha's holding up that big sign and hand drawn letters.
(31:48):
Her other hand holds up a cigarette while a purse
hangs at her elbow. She's wearing a fur coat and
a wig that looks like it's been blown about in
the wind.
Speaker 6 (31:58):
Diana captures her smile, and I love that it's powerful
because you don't often see her not smiling.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
That's Judy Gara. She is the associate director of Collections
at New York's incredibly impressive and incredibly queer Leslie Lowman
Museum of Art. Side note, I'm a proud board member there,
and it's.
Speaker 6 (32:21):
That moment of letting her guard down with her cigarette
outside of the hospital, you know, having just had to
be so on and it's like that moment almost stolen
away for herself.
Speaker 5 (32:32):
Judy sat down with me at the museum to look
at a bunch of images of Marsha.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
Here Marcia is leaning against the wall of Bellevue Hospital
on First Avenue and twenty eighth Street in Manhattan. She
was there to protest the way doctors were trying to
quote unquote cure homosexuality with harmful practices like electroshock therapy.
Behind her is the window with bars on it.
Speaker 5 (33:01):
Seeing I guess this window with these bars, it really
drives home. I'm sure how that institution felt like a
prison at points, and on any other given day, Marcia
could have been behind those bars instead of outside of it.
Speaker 6 (33:22):
I mean, there's first hand experience there right.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Often when we see images of activism, photos highlight empowerment
and strength. But in my experience protesting, what I'm really
feeling most of all is anger or grief. This photo
of Marcia shows us those harder feelings. We're not just
seeing her as this fearless activist it's a window into
(33:50):
what she was really going through.
Speaker 6 (33:55):
There's the knowledge that medical care always fall short and
fails transfolks, and so I think, in many ways, that's
what this expression is. It's I'm bringing my personal experience
to this.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Marcia was checked into Bellevue both voluntarily and involuntarily throughout
the years as she struggled with her mental health. Understanding
that is essential to understanding who she was, even if
it clouds the picture most often painted of Marcia with
a smile and a flower crown.
Speaker 6 (34:27):
It's like the dual edge of myth. Right, like we
as trans people especially deserve our heroes and our myths,
but also like, okay, yes, we don't want to lose
the person. And so it's like, how do we then
do that by both honoring her life and not erasing
the struggle.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
After the break, we hear more from the person, and
during that struggle Marcia herself.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
And when I have apartment, I just suffered up to
all these people, and I don't care if I'm ripped
off or stereo or something like that. These are the
worldly things. I came here with nothing I'm leaving or nothing.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 10 (35:15):
I was no one nobody from Nowheresville until I became
a drag queen.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
We're back with Afterlives. We've already heard from one of
Marsha's roommates, a close friend, an art historian, and we're
going to talk to all kinds of people about Marsha
this season. But the most important person we need to
hear from and to listen to is Marcia herself.
Speaker 10 (35:44):
I've never been an extravagant type drag queen that can
go out to a very fancy story in town and
buy expensive dread.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Marsha may have been surviving by the skin of her
teeth at points, but she never said that. She always
had big dreams, and she declared them in that unmistakable
sing song voice, and I said.
Speaker 10 (36:09):
Honey, I'm gonna want to be a Hamburger jingling for
the rest of my life.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
I want to be a drag queen. I want to
be one of the world's biggest drag queens.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
These clips are from an interview with Marsha recorded by
Michael Cassino, who directed the documentary Pay It No Mind.
You can watch it on YouTube. This recording was supposed
to be a test run for the film, but just
days later, Marcia would be found dead. These are the
(36:43):
last words she shared with the world.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
There's a p in my name. Also they call me
Marsha Payte. Now my jest, I try and pay all
those things that happened to me in life absolutely no mind.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
That's how Marsia dealt with impossible circumstances. She let them
roll off her back whenever she could. She clung to
this phrase, this philosophy. Even as she recounts the hardships
of her life in this interview, she still smiles for
the camera, applies her makeup, and keeps pushing through.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
When I was young and naive, when I started wearing
tested at five years old, and I stopped for a
long time.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
Marcia moved out of her hometown in Elizabeth, New Jersey
in nineteen sixty three after graduating from high school. She
found her people, she found herself. But it was hard,
and I got out there.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
I learned to hustle the night, learned to go out
with different.
Speaker 9 (37:49):
Men, and I get waited on tables, and I've learned
how to divive.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
I wondered what her first night in the city was like.
How she decided where it was safe enough to sit
down and rust her eyes. How long it took to
meet someone else like her, someone who could show her
the ropes of this environment. I wonder how adrenaline and
exhaustion moved through her veins.
Speaker 3 (38:19):
It's a miracle I'm still here. I mean, how many
people gets to come and bring guys.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
A John even shot Marcia once and the bullets stayed
lodged in her spine for the rest of her life.
Speaker 3 (38:34):
Being a hooker is no easy business for no one.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
By the late sixties, she was making a name for
herself in the village. She was on stage and immersed
in a world of creatives and artists. She began living
her dreams.
Speaker 10 (38:53):
Honey, I walked right down and you all halts office
and walked in.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
He took some photos a group of soak screens and
called ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
Polaroids of Marcia and a blonde pigtailed wig and a
choker necklace became one of Warhol's famous silk screens. Iconic
like those Campbell soup cans or the images of Marilyn Monroe.
You'd think that sitting for a famous artist would have
changed something for her material conditions. I wish it had
(39:28):
today Those silk screens are worth tens of thousands of dollars,
but Marcia only got paid fifty bucks. She could walk
by her face in a fancy art gallery, but she
wasn't welcomed in. She was at the center of New
York City Zeitgeisy seventies art world, but it didn't change
(39:50):
her day to day life. The thing that's amazing about Marsha, though,
is that she changed other people's lives. She was struggling
to live, but what was hers always also belonged to
her community. Here's Marcia in a different interview recorded in
(40:11):
Los Angeles in nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
These are like young people that if you can grasp
them and give them food and the place to stay
and finance to you know, send them to a school
where they can get learn how to read and write something.
Some of them can make something matter themselves, but Holly,
anybody ever does that.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
Sure, she was out protesting and fighting for gay rights,
but she was also about creating a home, being a home.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
When I have apartment, I just offened death to all
these people, and I don't care if I'm ripped off
for a stereo or something like that. These are wely things.
I came here with nothing, I'm leaving with nothing. I
just let them take it.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
With her giving spirit and her deep desire to make
the world more just, Marcia and her friend and fellow
revolutionary Sylvia Rivera founded Star which stood for Street Transvestite
Action Revolutionaries. The Stars, as they called themselves, did sex
work to pay for an apartment that welcomed in queer
(41:22):
and trans kids from the streets.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
I mean a lot of people used to say a
lot of bad things about me, Like I was a
hooker and I worked on the streets. They used to say, Oh,
she's just a hooker and she works a state out there.
I would never just a hooker working on the streets.
I was a hooker working in the gay mom.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
Star House was a revolutionary dream, especially for the nineteen seventies.
Marcia knew in her bones that trans people had to
protect each other, to take care of themselves because no
one else was going to step in, and Sylvia couldn't
always pay the rent. In fact, most of the time
(42:04):
it just wasn't possible. They were frequently evicted, and sometimes
Starhouse was in the back of a truck, but they
found other apartments and never stopped finding ways to challenge
the status quo and give back to their people. Marcia
gave and gave and gave to others, and it came
(42:26):
at a high price for her own mental health.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
I mean, I have all these breakdowns from overwork and stuff,
and I was working very hard in Movement.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
I wish I could ask Marsha what she needed. I
wish I could make her a big meal and sew
up that fur coat she was wearing in her Hoboken kitchen.
I wish I could know what self care looked like
for her and what those moments of mental anguish felt like.
I wish I could know what she would have done
(42:56):
if she'd had a longer life. We're lucky that Marcia
spoke for herself and she did ask us for something.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
We've come a long way and gave movement, but we
got a long way to go. And I think that
all of us gay brothers and sisters just try to
keep on doing our bets, to hold each other's hand
and keep on going right through the aids, barbus and
everything to do. They'll decide the rainbow.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
She left us with a task, and this couldn't be
a more critical moment. To remember it. Trans rights are
being systematically stripped away, our rights to self expression, to
medical care, and to work free from discrimination. Our lives
(43:51):
are still on the line. The lives of our youth
are especially vulnerable, plagued by bigotry and shame. We need
to show them that there's a future where they can thrive.
We have to stay on the streets and remember that
(44:11):
Marcia is still alive in.
Speaker 4 (44:14):
US tis out cares under attack.
Speaker 6 (44:20):
I'm kind of sick of bigotry, aren't you.
Speaker 5 (44:24):
Hello.
Speaker 10 (44:25):
My name is Eli.
Speaker 5 (44:27):
I am a nine year old and I happen to
be trans. Now I am untife again because Trump is president.
Speaker 3 (44:36):
Under attack.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
We won't stand down. We've always been here and Marcia
is proof of that. Remembering her and understanding her struggles
and her resilience is a chance to find some desperately
needed strength and grounding. Marcia's story is a lesson in
(44:59):
humananity and care and survival and self love, a lesson
in never giving up. We can tear these systems down
and build something better. Marsha can be our guiding life.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
As you know what gay love means, don't you. It
means happy sharing. And I think if there was more
happy sharing in the gay movement instead of selfishness, my dear,
would be a lot further than we are today. I mean,
when people start sharing from the heart and giving from
(45:37):
the heart, it would make it a better movie than
a stronger movement than any straight movement could ever be.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
This season on Afterlives.
Speaker 7 (45:50):
Oh my goodness, she's strutting up there waving to the
policeman in the cars.
Speaker 4 (45:55):
It was one of the most liberating things that I
have ever done to.
Speaker 12 (45:59):
A Marsha with up.
Speaker 7 (46:01):
Missinabet turned and said, oh hello, miss Madonna.
Speaker 4 (46:06):
Marsha's genius.
Speaker 7 (46:08):
Marsh's an artistic genius.
Speaker 3 (46:09):
What have you been launder? I felt the show and
Amazonian guest star you.
Speaker 12 (46:15):
Would never kill usself.
Speaker 4 (46:16):
We knew that we forty Let's say I went to
heaven and Maranda Marsha is Sai Marsha. You became very famous.
You were on the cover of Time magazine one hundred
most Important People of the Century.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
Thank you so much for listening to Afterlives. Please leave
us a rating and review to let us know what
you think. After Lives of the production of The Outspoken
Network from iHeart Podcasts in partnership with School of Humans
I'm your host and creator Raquel Willis. Dylan Hoyer is
our senior producer and scriptwriter. Our associate producer is Joey Patt.
(46:54):
Sound design and engineering by Jess Krinchitic, story editing by
Julia Furlan, fact checking by Carolyn Talmage. Score composed by
Wisely Murray. Our production manager is Daisy Church. Executive producers
include me, Raquel Willis, and Jess Krinchich from The Outspoken
(47:14):
Podcast Network, Amelia Brock, Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and Elsie
Crowley from School of Humans and The Cats Company. The
image of Marsha in our show art is provided by
the Leslie Lohman Museum of Art Founder's gift p. Fifteen
dot six nine nine dot one zero six. A special
(47:35):
thank you to everyone who provided archival tape, including the
Randy Wicker and Marsha P. Johnson papers at the LGBT
Community Center National History Archive, Jimmy Camicha's Hot Peaches records
at NYU's Fells Library, and special collections Marcia nineteen ninety
two by Michael Casino and Marcia at Tony Nunziatis by
(47:58):
Michael Casino. Courtesy of Michael Casino. Skyler Baylor at Pink
Mantray Interview with Marsha P. Johnson, nineteen eighty eight from
one National Gay and Lesbian Archives at the USC Libraries
Host
Raquel Willis
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