Ronnie Kray

As much as I love showing how inspirational the LGBTQ+ people of history can be…. they weren’t all wholesome heroes. And I’ll be the first to admit… sometimes it’s fun to write about a bad guy. And Ronnie Kray definitely fits the bill.

Ronald “Ronnie” Kray and his brother Reginald “Reggie” were born on October 24, 1933 in London. Their parents were Charles David Kray and Violet Annie Lee, they had a brother who was older than them by six years named Charles James Kray. Reggie was the older of the two — by ten minutes. At three years old, both twins came down with diptheria. They attended school, first at Wood Close School and later at the Daniel Street School. All in all, a fairly ordinary childhood.

As adolescent boys, thanks largely to their grandmother, the twins took up amateur boxing. Egged on by their sibling rivalry, they actually managed to be kind of successful at it. (Inherent violent tendencies probably helped too.) In March of 1952,  the twins were called upon to join the National Service in the British Army. Although they did show up to the depot as they were supposed to, they tried to leave after only a couple of minutes. A corporal tried to stop them from leaving — Ronnie punched him in the jaw and the two kept going, walking all the way back home. The next day they were arrested — the police turned them over to the army.

That September, the twins were both absent without leave again. When a police officer tried to arrest them, the duo physically attacked him — which led to them being held in the Tower of London. This gives them the grand distinction of being among the last prisoners held in the Tower until they were transferred to a military prison. They were held there until they were dishonorably discharged — and when it became apparent that that was the inevitable outcome of their incarceration, the twins became increasingly badly behaved — their antics including dumping hot tea on a guard, handcuffing a guard to their cell bars with a set of stolen cuffs, and setting their bedding on fire. Eventually, they attacked one of their guards with a vase and escaped. They escape attempt was short lived, they were soon recaptured. After their discharge, they were transferred to a civilian prison where they served time for all of the crimes they’d committed since going AWOL.

The dishonorable discharge and the criminal records killed their budding boxing careers, so the two took their violent behavior and turned it into a full-time career in organized crime. They began by starting a protection racket, but ultimately fell in with Jay Murray and, through him, became involved in armed robberies, hijacking, and arson. Through these illicit activities, they came to own several properties.

In 1960, Ronnie got arrested for running a protection racket. While he was in prison (for 18 months), Reggie was given ownership of a nightclub Esmerelda’s Barn — which, apparently, was a really happening night club frequented by very famous people despite have “barn” in its name. Owning this not only gave them more influence in the criminal underworld of the West End, and allowed them to have a base of operations for their gang “the Firm” — but also gave them legitimate income and brought them into the social circles of celebrities like Judy Garland and Diana Dors. As celebrities, the Kray brothers were much beloved — as criminals, they were greatly feared. Even the people who worked for them could face severe and painful punishments if they disappointed or failed to show the proper respect.

In July of 1964, however, Ronnie caught the attention of tabloids for an entirely new reason: his sex life. The Sunday Mirror published an article implying that Ronnie Kray was involved in a sexual relationship with Conservative politician Lord Robert John Graham Boothby. Sodomy was, at this point, still a criminal act in the United Kingdoms. The Conservative party moved to shut down the news story — and so did their rivals the Labour party, as they sought to protect Tom Driburg — a member of parliament who was (relatively) open about being gay and frequently socialized with Lord Boothby and Ronnie. Ultimately, the Sunday Mirror settled out of court and paid Lord Boothy £40,000.

And while the scandal the entire event caused may have been potentially damaging for politicians in the UK — it did nothing but help the Kray brothers. The two became practically untouchable, as now neither the Labour or Conservative parties wanted Ronnie investigated for fear of what might turn up about the sexual proclivities of their own members. It took another two years before the Kray criminal empire began to unravel — and it didn’t really happen because of any police investigations.

Over the next two years, Ronnie began to suffer from paranoid schizophrenia. On March 8, 1966 a shootout with a rival organization called the Richardson Gang left one of their associates in the Firm, a man named Richard Hart, dead. A member of the Richardson Gang, George Cornell, who was not involved in the shooting but was known to call Ronnie some derogatory names for gay men like “fat poof”, was drinking at the Blind Beggar Pub the next day. That pub was only like a mile away from where the Kray brothers lived, so Cornell was maybe not making the best decisions at the time (but to be fair, he’d probably been drinking for a while.) Ronnie found out that Cornell was there, and had his driver “Scotch Jack” John Dickson and his assistant Ian Barrie bring him to the pub. (Side note: if your driver’s nickname is two different kinds of liquors maybe hire a different driver. I’m just saying.)

When Ronnie walked into the pub, Cornell reportedly said “Well, looks who’s here.” And then Ronnie shot him. Barrie threatened the full-on crowd of onlookers not to say anything, shot up the ceiling a bit, and then brought his boss back out to “Scotch Jack” to drive them away. Cornell died in the hospital at 3 am.

In December of that same year, the Krays helped a man named Frank Mitchell escape from Dartmoor Prison. Frank was a friend of Ronnie’s, as they’d spent time together in Wandsworth Prison. The idea was that the escape attempt would bring media attention to Mitchell’s case, and he’d be reviewed for parole. (And the parole board would probably find if you’re trying to escape prison maybe you need to stay in a little longer, but what do I know?) However, Mitchell never returned to prison to be paroled — in fact, he disappeared altogether and was never seen again. Freddie Foreman, a friend of the Kray brothers, would later claim in his autobiography to have shot Mitchell and disposed of his body at sea as a favor for the twins but there’s no actual evidence supporting that because nothing has ever been found.

Meanwhile, the Kray brothers continued to literally get away with murder. They socialized with A-list celebrities, their legitimate business raked in cash, and the politicians in power did everything they could to prevent any investigations even while bodies were piling up (or disappearing). In 1967, Reggie’s wife committed suicide — leaving both the mental health of both the twins in a seriously questionable state. They took out a contract to kill their financial advisor Leslie Payne, giving the contract to a minor member of the Firm, Jack “the Hat” McVitie. It was a £1000 job, and they paid £500 upfront — but McVitie failed to complete it. Ronnie convinced Reggie they had only one option: to kill McVitie as an example.

After Reggie stabbed McVitie to death, Tony and Chris Lambrianou and Ronnie Bender were called in to help dispose of the body and get rid of any evidence. McVitie was a large man and his body could not fit in the trunk of a car, so they covered him and loaded him into the backseat. The car ran out of gas in front of St. Mary’s Church, so the trio set the scene up to frame another gang for the murder and left the corpse in the car at the church. The Kray brothers were furious, and called in Foreman to finish disposing of the body — which Foreman ultimately dumped in the English Channel.

However, murdering one of their own was not a good look for the twins. Members of their gang got uneasy — wondering if what happened to McVitie could happen to them as well. At about that time, Leonard “Nipper” Read of Scotland Yard was promoted to the Murder Squad — and he’d been trying to investigate the Krays since 1964. By the end of 1967, Read had gathered enough evidence to arrest both of the Kray twins — but not enough to make the charges stick. Finally, in May of 1968, Scotland Yard arrested the Kray brothers and fifteen members of their gang. They went through elaborate lengths to prevent any of the arrested members of the Firm from speaking to each other, and offered all of them deals to testify against each other — but the Krays could. They schemed to have “Scotch Jack” Dickson confess to murdering Cornell, their cousin Ronnie Hart to confess to murdering McVitie, and Albert Donaghue to confess to murdering Mitchell. Donaghue, however, flatly refused and almost immediately turned on the twins, confessing everything he knew. Next “Scotch Jack” rolled on the twins — and with his testimony, they found the bartender who had been working in the pub where George Cornell was killed. She gave her statement as well.

The evidence became overwhelming, and the only defense was essentially to try to discredit the witnesses because they were mostly all also criminals. What followed was the longest murder hearing in British history, but it was ultimately determined that the twins were going to go to jail for life and would not be eligible for parole for thirty years. Their brother Charlie was also jailed for ten years for his help in their criminal activities.

At the time of their sentencing, Ronnie was engaged to a woman named Monica — whom he claimed was the only woman he ever loved. In the first seven months of his imprisonment, Ronnie and Monica sent 59 very affectionate letters to each other — even though she married someone else during that time. Ronnie was finally diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, and was sent to Broadmoor Hospital in 1979.

The twins were allowed out of prison — under heavy guard — to attend their mother’s funeral in 1982. There was basically a huge media circus about it because of their presence (and also because Diana Dors was there) so they decided to spare their family that kind of attention, and did not attend their father’s funeral in 1983.

In 1985, the staff at Broadmoor Hospital discovered evidence that Ronnie, Reggie, and Charlie were operating a business called “Krayleigh Enterprises” which offered bodyguards and “protection services” to celebrities. Frank Sinatra hired 18 bodyguards from the company when he visited the Wimbledon Championship in that year. The police investigated the business, and found no legal reason to shut it down — so, apparently, it was actually legitimately bodyguards and apparently Frank Sinatra actually legitimately needed 18 of them to watch tennis.

Also in 1985, Ronnie married a woman named Elaine Mildener who he met at Broadmoor Hospital. They divorced in 1989, after which he married a woman named Kate Howard. They divorced in 1994.

In several early interviews while imprisoned, Ronnie identified himself as a gay man, but by 1989 he was identifying himself as a bisexual man — but he certainly never denied that he was attracted to men. In fact, in one interview in the 1970’s, he said: “[Gordon of Khartoun] was like me, homosexual, and he met his death like a man. When it’s time for me to go, I hope I do the same.” In actuality, Gordon of Khartoun was not a homosexual and Ronnie met his death on March 17, 1995 from a heart attack while still being held at Broadmoor Hospital. Reggie was allowed out of prison (in handcuffs) to attend Ronnie’s funeral. (Reggie lived until 2000, when he died of cancer. He was released from prison weeks before his death on compassionate grounds.)

The Krays’ celebrity status while being horrible, awful, violent criminals has certainly left a lasting impact on our culture. There have been multiple movies, several books, and a couple of plays about them, and depictions of them appear in eight television series. But their real influence went way further than that. If you were reading this whole thinking “wow, they sound just like gangsters from the movies!” that’s because the archetype of gangster that appears in movies was essentially revamped to be more like them after their arrest — their clothes, their crimes, etc. I just kind of wish Hollywood had been a bit more fascinated with their sex scandals too.

Charlie Howard

There’s been a lot of conversation lately about the beginning of the new movie It Chapter 2 because — spoiler alert/trigger warning — it opens with the murder of a gay man. This scene is taken pretty much directly from Stephen King’s novel It but that, in turn, is taken pretty much directly from an actual hate crime that took place in Bangor, Maine in 1984.

Charlie Howard was born on January 31, 1961 and was raised in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. He was fairly effeminate and suffered from asthma as a child, so he was bullied pretty relentlessly throughout his youth. He even skipped his high school graduation in order to spare his family from witnessing the bullying he received. After high school, he left New Hampshire and headed to Maine — eventually finding his way to Bangor. He joined the local Unitarian church, and became involved in the gay rights and support group Interweave.

Charlie was not quiet about his sexuality — which was unusual for that time in the 80’s. He would wear jewelry, accessories like earrings and a purse, and make-up if he felt like it. (Frankly, that’s pretty brave even now — thirty-five years later.) Unfortunately, this got him a good deal of negative attention from the general population — he was harassed by locals teens, and in one trip to a grocery store a woman chased him out shouting things like “You pervert!” at him. One time, while leaving his apartment, Charlie found his pet kitten strangled to death. Charlie learned quickly to be wary of locals — but he never toned down his queerness.

On July 7, 1984, Charlie attended a potluck at Interweave — he and his friend Roy Ogden left the party at about 10:00 pm. The two were crossing the Kenduskeag River Bridge on State Street, when they were spotted by a car full of teenagers — two girls, and three boys: Shawn Mabry, Daniel Ness, and Jim Baines. They stopped the car, and the three boys got out. Charlie and Roy ran — the teenage boys chased them. An asthma attack hit Charlie, making him easy to catch. The boys began to beat him, and then decided to throw him over the side of the bridge — despite Charlie’s pleas that he could not swim. He tried to grab a hold of the railing on the bridge, but the boys pried his hands loose. Shawn Mabry gave the final push that sent Charlie into the water below.

As they were leaving the scene of the crime, they spotted Roy Ogden and threatened his life should he tell anyone. That didn’t stop him from pulling the nearest fire alarm he could find to summon the police. Charlie’s body was pulled from the river at about 12:10 am. The autopsy would show that he died from drowning, with an acute asthma attack contributing.

The next day, with news that Charlie had died, one of the boys turned himself in to the police. The other two were quickly arrested. They were remanded to their parents custody and tried as juveniles. They claimed that a few days earlier, Charlie had made passes at them. The “gay panic” defense did not work — mostly because they’d previously told police they’d just wanted to “beat up a faggot” and that that was something they’d done before. All three ultimately pleaded guilty to manslaughter. They were each sentenced to the Maine Youth Center for an indeterminate length of time not to exceed their 21st birthdays. Juvenile records are sealed but it has been reported that Mabry served 22 months, Baines serve two full years, and there is no public record of how long Ness served. After his release, Baines has spoken to many groups across Maine about his involvement in the murder, and about how dangerous intolerance and hatred can be. Edward Armstrong wrote about Baines story in Penitence: A True Story — published in 1994. Baines did not receive any royalties for his participation.

The murder had a lasting impact on the community of Bangor, Maine. Every year since the attack, they have thrown flowers off of the bridge where it occurred. They constructed a monument in honor of Charlie along the banks of the Kenduskeag Stream. Partly as a reaction to the killing, the Maine Lesbian/Gay Political Alliance (now EqualityMaine) was founded. The Maine Speakout Project keeps the Charlie Howard Memorial Library open to the public in Portland, Maine.

Aside from being the source for the hate crime in the beginning of Stephen King’s 1986 novel It, the crime also inspired the novel The Drowning of Stephan Jones by Bette Green, published in 1991. Mark Doty also wrote about the murder in the poem “Charlie Howard’s Descent.” But, perhaps, instead of the focus on his murder, we should all be focusing more on his willingness to be himself openly and unapologetically — no matter the cost.

Roger Casement

In a lot of these articles, we’ve talked about how governments tried their best to sweep people’s queerness under the rug. That’s not exactly the case with Sir Roger David Casement.

Casement was born in Sandycove, Ireland on September 1, 1864 (why, yes, the timing of this article is intentional, thank you very much!) His father, Captain Roger Casement, was active in the military and fought in various regions — including present-day Afghanistan. The family moved to England around 1867, where Casement’s mother secretly had him baptized as a Roman Catholic (although there’s some dispute over the exact details of this baptism.) Casement’s mother died six years later, and they returned to live in Ireland. Four years after that, his father died. Casement and his brother (Thomas Casement, who helped establish the Irish Coastguard Service) were forced to live on the generosity of relatives. By 16 years old, he had abandoned a formal education and taken a job with a shipping company in Liverpool.

Roger Casement and sculptor Herbert Ward, friends in the Congo

By 1884, Casement had taken a job working for Henry Morton Stanley and the African International Association — which was basically a front to allow Belgium to take over the Congo. Casement was employed to conduct a survey to improve communication within the region. As part of this, he recruited laborers and supervised them as they built a railroad to help traders bypass the Congo River. When he arrived in the Congo, Casement believed that colonization would help bring moral and social progress to the continent of Africa — something he still believed in 1890 when he met Joseph Conrad. Over the course of the next nine years, both became disillusioned with the supposed benefits of colonization on the African people — Conrad expressed this by writing Heart of Darkness. Casement would write something else entirely.

In 1901, Casement began serving the British consul in French Congo. It was in this position that he was commissioned, in 1903, to investigate the human rights situation in the colony under King Leopold II of Belgium’s leadership. Casement spent weeks traveling throughout the Congo, interviewing everyone from workers to mercenaries. And then he wrote the Casement Report. The document painted a picture of Leopold exploiting the Congolese and using the natural resources of the land — primarily rubber — for his own personal profit, as an entrepreneur and not as the king of Belgium. Furthermore, his private military force the Force Publique were terrorizing and murdering the Congolese to increase profits and productivity. The report was incredibly controversial, and many doubted its veracity. However, the report became public in 1904 — which made the Belgian Parliament force Leopold to set up an inquiry, which confirmed the report’s findings. As a reward for his efforts, Casement received a Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (CMG). Ultimately, this all resulted in Leopold’s reign over the Congo being usurped by the Belgian Parliament, and the Belgian Congo being formally established. 

By that point, however, the British consul had reassigned Casement — in 1906, they sent him to Brazil. In 1909, a journalist named Sidney Paternoster wrote an article in a British magazine called Truth that accused the Peruvian Amazon Company (PAC) of abusing their rubber-harvesting laborers, and destroying and stealing rubber from their Colombian competitors. As most of the economy of the British-controlled parts of that region depended heavily on PAC, the consul took the article very seriously and assigned Casement — at that point the consul-general — to investigate. Casement made his way to the Putumayo District, which was technically outside the jurisdiction of the national government and was near the border of Colombia but was also where a lot of PAC’s rubber was harvested.

Casement found the conditions at least as bad as those in Congo, and his subsequent report has been called a “brilliant piece of journalism.” Using first person accounts from both the victims of abuse and from their abusers, he painted a clear and undeniable picture. Much of PAC’s labor came from unpaid indigenous people, who were kept nearly starving and sometimes branded with hot irons. The indigenous women and girls were frequently raped. Any indigenous person was liable to be casually murdered and forgotten.

Casement’s first report about this was made public in Great Britain in 1910. The British people were outraged. The heads of PAC and the Peruvian government vowed to make changes and improve conditions, and to that end the Peruvian government attempted to prosecute the men Casement had exposed to be murderers — most of them managed to escape arrest and were never seen again. In 1911, the British government asked Casement to return to the region to see if conditions had improved. Though some things had improved, Casement’s scathing report explained of terrible and sometimes fatal punishments inflicted on entire families — having parents and their children held in pillories, sometimes for months. He described parents, held in the pillories, being flogged to death while their children were forced to watch.

The scandal cost PAC huge business losses, and ultimately the company collapsed. The head of PAC, Julio Cesar Arana, was never prosecuted and ultimately went on to have a successful political career in Peru. Casement, meanwhile, returned to England where he was knighted. In 1913, Casement retired from the British consul and began to focus on politics. Or rather, on his political view that Great Britain should just rule over Britain — which meant that Ireland should be independent. Casement had joined some groups that wanted an independent Ireland years earlier, while on leave from the Congo. Several of his Irish nationalist friends and he formed a new group, called the Irish Volunteers.

Casement traveled to the United States to raise money for the new organization, and to reconnect with some exiled Irish nationalists such as those of Clan na Gael. Clan na Gael initially believed Casement to be too moderate, though he eventually won them over — partly by helping organize and get funding for things like the Howth gun-running, where 1500 rifles were delivered to the Irish Volunteers on July 26, 1914. In this event, the guns were delivered on a yacht to Howth harbor, unloaded in broad daylight in front of a huge crowd, and yet the Irish Volunteers were able to completely avoid law enforcement.

In August of 1914, World War I broke out. Casement traveled to New York to meet with John DeVoy (of Clan na Gael) and the German diplomat Count Johann Berstorff. Together, they cooked up a plan — if Germany would supply weapons to the Irish, they would revolt against the British, forcing Britain to divert military forces from fighting the Germans. To secure this plan, Casement donned a disguise and traveled to Germany. Along the way, the British government offered his traveling companion Adler Christensen a great deal of money to betray Casement — and the diplomat Mansfeldt Findlay also subtly implied that Casement was involved in homosexual relationships, and that this could be used as leverage. (I know you’re all like “finally some gay stuff!” Not really, but we’ll get there, I promise!) Christensen did not take the bait, and Casement successfully made it to Germany.

In Germany, he spent most of his time negotiating. He managed to secure a written promise from Germany to never invade Ireland, no matter the outcome of the war. Meanwhile, Casement also attempted to negotiate the release of 2,000 Irish prisoners-of-war, on the condition that those POWs fight for Irish independence. 52 of the prisoners committed to the cause and were freed on December 27, 1914. Around that time, he was also helping connect some of his American contacts with the people behind the Hindu-German Conspiracy — which was a similar cause, Indians hoping to use the war to their advantage and secure independence for India.

In April 1916, Germany offered 2,000 rifles to the Irish revolutionaries, and ten machine guns. However, Casement could not secure any German officers to help train the Irish in the use of the machine guns. Casement came to believe the Germans were toying with him — giving just enough support to lead to a rebellion that would distract the British, but that was still doomed to fail. (He was pretty smart, y’know?) With the promise of these weapons, the other leaders of the Irish rebellion — home in Ireland — planned out the Easter Rising. The plan was completed by the time Casement learned it was happening — and, when he heard about it, he realized it could not succeed without more support from the Germans. On April 9, he set off for Ireland in the submarine SM U-19 determined to stop or, at least, delay the plan.

However, the plan started going badly pretty much right away. The men Devoy sent to the docks to collect the weapons drove off the pier and drowned. The weapons themselves never arrived — the British had been tipped off that weapons might be smuggled into Ireland, and were able to stop and intercept the ship carrying them even though it was disguised as a Norwegian freighter. The ship was scuttled, and the German crew were taken as prisoners of war.

Casement was dropped off in Ireland on April 21 — three days before the Easter Rising was planned. He was suffering from a bout of recurring malaria (a condition he’d suffered from periodically since his days in the Congo), and was too weak to travel any further. As a result, he was rather quickly discovered at McKenna Fort (which is now, as a result, known as Casement’s Fort) and arrested on the charges of high treason, sabotage, and espionage. The Irish Volunteers were ordered not to try to rescue Casement, so as not to use any of the precious ammunition they’d managed to acquire for the Easter Rising (which was still scheduled to take place. I mean, literally everything was going wrong, so why not?) The rebellion did take place, lasted six days, and was ultimately a failure with tons of people being imprisoned and executed.

Casement was brought to Brixton Prison and placed under suicide watch. This seems to have been primarily because they wanted to make absolutely sure he was still alive for his trial, which was very public and very publicized. Prior to this trial, Treason Act 1351 had only applied to crimes committed on British soil, but Casement’s crimes had been committed in Germany. The courts adopted a new interpretation of the law, basically just so they could try Casement for his actions. This whole interpretation was basically legitimized by the court saying that a certain comma wouldn’t have been included in the original Norman-French text. Casement later wrote that he was “to be hanged on a comma” — which is where that saying originates.

Apparently, during the search for evidence, the prosecution came into possession of what is now referred to as “the Black Diaries” which described various sexual experiences that Casement had had with other men throughout his life — mostly sex that he paid to have with other men. The prosecutor, F.E. Smith, suggested to the defense that they release these and that, with those in evidence, Casement might be found guilty but insane and thereby escape the death penalty. Casement rejected the idea. So, instead, the government surreptitiously leaked the diaries to the public in an effort to turn opinion against him — as Casement was still fairly popular for his work in the Congo and Peru.

Roger Casement escorted to Pentonville Prison

Casement was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging. He appealed both the conviction and the death penalty. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, George Bernard Shaw, and W.B. Yeats all petitioned for leniency, for Casement to avoid the death penalty. Yeats, specifically, was convinced that the diaries were fake and that Casement was the victim of a conspiracy meant to defame and destroy him. The United States Senate also sent an appeal against using the death penalty for Casement, which the British cabinet soundly rejected at the behest of F.E. Smith — proving that his idea to have Casement’s defense release the diaries was never actually intended to save his life. Unfortunately, partly because Casement was now being painted as a sexual degenerate and partly because a lot of British people were so offended at the idea of an independent Ireland, many of his other friends and family had abandoned him — including his old friend from Africa, Joseph Conrad. A few relatives covertly donated to his defense fund, but none of them publicly spoke out on his behalf. As such, Casement’s appeals were denied. His knighthood was stripped from him on June 29, 1916 and he was hanged at Pentonville Prison on August 3, 1916.

Roger Casement’s grave in Dublin, the inscription translates to “Roger Casement, who died for the sake of Ireland, 3rd August 1916”

Initially Casement’s body was buried at the prison cemetery. The British government rejected requests to repatriate the body to Ireland for years. They finally relented in 1965 and — despite Casement’s knighthood having been rescinded — the paperwork for the body calls him “Sir Roger Casement.” Although Casement’s last wish was to be buried on Murlough Bay, the only condition of the repatriation was that Casement could not be buried in Northern Ireland — as they feared what stirring up the Catholics might cause. Casement was given a state funeral with military honors, and buried in Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin. His funeral was attended by 30,000 people including the President of Ireland, Éamon de Valera — the last surviving participant in the Easter Rising.

You may have noticed that Casement’s sexuality only seems to appear in his biography when it’s being used as blackmail. Casement was very good at keeping his private life private, as one would need to do in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and really doesn’t seem to have had any substantial or impactful romantic or sexual relationships with other men. This has led to some seriously heated debates about whether or not Casement was, in fact, queer at all. Were the Black Diaries fake? There’s been some pretty convincing arguments that they were. I’ve taken the opinion that they were not — or at least not entirely. I’ve been convinced by two things: firstly, Casement’s friend John Harris viewed the diaries in 1916, and was himself skeptical of them. Harris wrote: “I was so firmly convinced, that the diary was not Roger Casement’s handiwork. Alas, when it was put before me and I had examined certain parts, my confidence was shaken. Then I came upon two or three facts only known in Europe to Casement and myself, and then my hopes were scattered…” The second thing that convinced me was a handwriting analysis done in 2002 that compared the diaries to things Casement wrote while in the Congo, and matched them. So its pretty convincing at this point that Casement was — as Jeffrey Dudgeon put it when he published a compilation of the Black Diaries in 2016 — a “busy homosexual.” I can only hope that 100 years after my death, someone will describe me that way too.

Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

I always say that you can find someone queer connected to virtually any major historical event. The American Revolution is no exception — and, in fact, without this person being queer, we would almost certainly have lost the war.

Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben was born in Magdeburg in the kingdom Prussia on September 17, 1730. His father was the Royal Prussian Engineer Captain Baron Wilhelm von Steuben and his wife Elizabeth von Jagdovin. In his childhood, his father went into the service of Empress Anna of Russia, and young von Steuben traveled with his father to his various posts. They returned to Prussia in 1740, where von Steuben began to a formal military education, taught to him by Jesuits. This education — despite being from a Roman Catholic order — left him extremely critical of the Roman Catholic church. This was probably partly because his parents were devout Protestants.

Although it’s said he participated in one of his father’s campaigns when he was 14 (in the War of Austrian Succession) Von Steuben did not formally join the Prussian military until he was 17. He served as a second lieutenant in the Seven Years War, suffering an injury in the Battle of Prague in 1757. By 1759, he was promoted to first lieutenant — and then, in August, was injured again. After he recovered he was given the role of deputy quartermaster for the generals headquarters. In 1761, he became the adjutant of Major General Von Knobloch (who — according to my real quick research, is now most renowned for having had von Steuben as his adjutant. Not the most illustrious military career, it seems.) They were taken prisoner by the Russians, but eventually returned to the ranks of the Prussians and von Steuben was later promoted to captain and became the aide-de-camp (personal assistant, basically) to King Frederick the Great. In 1762, von Steuben was one of 13 officers chosen for instruction by the Frederick the Great himself.

However, despite his great success, at the end of the war in 1763, von Steuben was unceremoniously out of a job. Later in his life, letters would point to this being due to an “inconsiderate step and an implacable personal enemy.” While that’s definitely vague enough for lots of interpretation, given later problems in his life, it is easy to speculate exactly what might have been going on — he probably needed to take the discharge in order to keep someone quiet about his sexuality.

The next year, von Steuben joined the service of Petty Court of Hohenzollern-Hechingen — a little principality in Germany. He remained with the court until 1777 — earning himself the title of “Baron” along the way. He was the only member of the court to accompany his prince to France in 1771, hoping to borrow money. They returned to Germany in 1775 deeply in debt and with nothing to show for their efforts.

By 1777, von Steuben was pretty desperate for any sort of job where he could actually make some money. Fortunately, he’d impressed the Comte de Saint-Germain, Claude Louis, when they had met in 1763, and the count also believed that the Americans could really use someone with Prussian officer’s training. He summoned von Steuben back to Paris and introduced him to Benjamin Franklin. The Continental Congress was certainly eager for von Steuben’s experience and training, but they were already running into morale issues among the men when they would hire mercenaries from other countries and immediately make them officers. Franklin could not offer von Steuben an officer’s pay (or really any pay), and von Steuben was unwilling to work for less — he rejected the offer to fight in America and headed back to Prussia.

Where he was immediately accused of engaging in homosexual acts with soldiers while serving in the Hohenzollern-Hechingen court. Although the accusations were never proven, von Steuben realized they would cost him any chance at furthering his career in Europe — and might land him in jail or worse. He returned to Paris — while rumors about his sexual activities made their way to the colonies in America ahead of him — and spoke to Franklin again. I’m not saying Franklin was being open-minded for the time, so much as he was just desperate to get a really skilled Prussian officer on board in the war. He wrote a letter to George Washington exaggerating von Steuben’s credentials (calling him a “Lieutenant General in the King of Prussia’s service”) — there is some debate as to if this was an unintential mistranslation, or if Franklin was trying to counter the damage rumors might have done to von Steuben’s reputation.

Whether or not Washington had heard the rumors is unclear, but there is some evidence that Washington was more open-minded about homosexuality than most people of the time. More to the point, Washington knew the Continental army was hanging by a thread and had even written that without “some great and capital change…this Army must inevitably…starve, dissolve or disperse.” So Washington was very eager to work with von Steuben, and since the baron had agreed to work — at least initially — without pay, the Continental Congress was also quite eager. They forwarded travel funds, and so on September 26, 1777 von Steuben boarded the ship the Flamand and set off for the colonies. They arrived in Portsmouth, New Hampshire on December 1, 1777.

He and his companions — including Pierre Etienne Du Ponceau (who was probably his lover at the time) — traveled to Boston, and then to York, Pennsylvania where they met with the Continental Congress on February 5, 1778. There, arrangements were officially made — von Steuben would be paid for his service at the end of the war, if he survived and if the Americans won. He made the trek from York to Valley Forge, where conditions for the troops were pretty dismal after months of low supplies and an Inspector General who was a complete deadbeat. He was appalled at the conditions — though impressed at the American’s ability to withstand them — and immediately set to work whipping the Continental Army into shape. He did not speak English, but was fluent in both German and French which allowed him to communicate with some of the officers — Alexander Hamilton, Nathaniel Greene, and Captain Benjamin Walker helped translate for him. The former two also helped him write out his training program for the men.

Von Steuben was also appointed temporary inspector general of the camp. He examined the living conditions and their equipment, and set changes into motion regarding the layout of the camp and the sanitation of the camp. These changes included putting the latrines and kitchens on opposite sides of the camp, and having the latrines on the downhill side of camp. A hundred years later, the changes he made would be adopted as standard practice — but they had the immediate effect of improving the health and quality of life for the soldiers at Valley Forge.

His training methods were also a hit — soldiers found him both impressive and entertaining, and found renewed confidence in themselves as they quickly mastered the tactics and maneuvers he instilled in them. He hand-selected 120 men (who became Washington’s honor guard) and trained them — mostly by barking at them, with Benjamin Walker translating. At a certain point, he began insisting that Walker translate not only his orders but also his (many) curse words. These 120 men, in turn, each trained other units of soldiers, who went on to train others, until the entire camp was trained. He had the entirety of the troops at Valley Forge trained by the end of April — just a few months after his arrival.

Von Steuben also implemented a new policy ensuring that troops received training before they were placed in a regiment — using this system of progressive training to make sure that could occur. Although commanding officers were in charge of making sure this happened, they would select their best sergeants to actually perform the training of new recruits. If any of this is sounding vaguely familiar, that’s because this is the groundwork for how our military still operates today.

Washington was greatly impressed, and suggested making von Steuben the permanent inspector general for the army with the rank and pay of a major general. Congress approved this recommendation on May 5, 1778. With this new position, von Steuben became aware of the lack of records being kept about supplies sent to the troops — he insisted that exact records be kept, putting an end to what he called “administrative incompetence, graft, war profiteering” and saving the Continental army an estimated five to eight thousand muskets.

While at Valley Forge, he was known for throwing wild parties in his quarters — to be admitted, it’s said, the only requirement to be allowed in was that no one was permitted to wear pants. I guess he figured that he’d been hired for the job in spite of fairly public allegations regarding his sexuality, so he could be more open about things than he’d been in Europe. He also began long-lasting romantic relationships with Benjamin Walker and Major General William North. This was all particularly brave since the first ever discharge of an American soldier (Ensign Frederick Gotthold Enslin) for committing homosexual acts occurred at Valley Forge at the behest of Lieutenant Colonel Aaron Burr in March of that same year — after von Steuben’s arrival.

Von Steuben’s training program was truly put to the test for the first time on May 20, 1778 with the Battle of Barren Hill. The British army attempted to entrap the Continental army — and although they technically won the battle, the Americans escaped with only three casualties. The next major proof of von Steuben’s training was the Battle of Monmouth on June 28, 1778. However, the greatest proof of the strength of von Steuben’s training was undoubtedly the Battle of Stony Point which took place on July 16, 1779 — the Continental Army launched a surprise attack on a British camp, with unloaded muskets. The Americans won the battle using only bayonets — and the tactics von Steuben had taught them for the use of bayonets.

Von Steuben compiled his training program into a book called Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States — more commonly called the “Blue Book.” The Blue Book was the manual for the United States Army until 1814, and was stilled heavily referenced until 1846. And, as I said before, it laid out the groundwork for how we are still training the military (just with a lot fewer bayonets.)

In 1780, von Steuben was part of the court martial for Major John André — who was being tried for espionage in conjunction with the defection of Benedict Arnold. Afterwards, von Steuben traveled south to Virginia with Nathaniel Greene, and then took command of a 1,000 man militia whose job was, essentially, to ensure the troops would still be able to receive supplies and shipments while in the south. They fought in the Battle of Blandford in April of 1781, before joining with Nathaniel Greene as he campaigned in the south. Ultimately, this led them to bring 450 Continental troops to Lafayette. Von Steuben took ill at this point, and had to take a leave from his services to recover — finally rejoining the army just in time for the campaign at Yorktown (you know, the climactic siege that sealed Britain’s defeat. Gotta hand it to him, von Steuben had impeccable timing.) Washington split his troops into three divisions — giving von Steuben command of one of them.

So, anyways, as you may have heard, the Americans won the war. Von Steuben helped Washington demobilize the army in 1783, and helped to create a defense plan for the United States of America. In May of 1783, he oversaw the creation of the Society of Cincinnati. That same year, he was granted an estate in New Jersey — a place now called the Steuben House. The estate had suffered some damages in the war, and had been vacant for a few years, so von Steuben spent a great deal of money repairing it — despite not yet having been paid for his participation in the war.

He ultimately settled on Manhattan Island and lived, initially, with William North — who, along with Benjamin Walker, he had adopted. (That was — at the time — a fairly common way for gay people to get around the whole lack of same-sex marraige, and worked well in polyamorous situations like theirs too.) In 1785, von Steuben began to serve as the president of the German Society of the City of New York and the following year the New York legislature voted to make von Steuben a United States citizen. That same year, von Steuben wrote — under the alias “Belisarius” –encouraging Shay’s Rebellion by calling the government of Massachusetts an oligarchy. Shortly thereafter, North married a woman and moved into a home of his own. Whether not he continued his relationship with von Steuben while he was married is unclear but they did remain in contact.

No longer working in the military, Friedrich tried to be a businessman — without much success. In 1788, he determined that his estate in New Jersey had to be sold to pay off debts. Walker handled the sale of the property and saw to it that Friedrich’s debts were paid off. In 1790, Congress finally began paying out Friedrich’s pension — $2,500 a year (that’s roughly $69,604.08 in today’s value. Thanks Inflation Calculator!) With this helping to keep him afloat — and the assistance of Nathaniel Greene and Alexander Hamilton who helped him get a mortgage — he was able to move into an estate in New York state’s Mohawk Valley in Oneida County.

In 1791, he met a young John W. Mulligan, who had recently graduated from Columbia College and begun a relationship with Charles Adams (son of John Adams) and taken a job clerking for Hamilton. Charles and John lived together for two years, until John Adams made it clear that he would disown Charles if their “intense friendship” didn’t end. Friedrich offered that both could live with him — though only John accepted the offer. He took a position as Friedrich’s live-in secretary in 1793 and they began a romantic relationship. (John also seemed to have feelings for Benjamin Walker and William North — a happy little polyamorous relationship, as far as I can tell.)

Friedrich died on November 28, 1794 at his New York estate. William North and John Mulligan were with him. His real estate property and what money he had was inherited by North and Walker — Mulligan inherited Friedrich’s library and collection of maps, as well as $2,500. The estate is now part of the town of Steuben, New York — which was just one of several places named after him. A handful of military vessels have also born the Von Steuben name in his honor — including a German submarine (the SS Kronprinz Wilhelm) captured during World War I was renamed the USS Von Steuben, and in World War II the Germans named a passenger ship that they turned into a gunship the SS General Von Steuben.

Von Steuben Day is a holiday that occurs in mid-September every year and which celebrates German-American culture and contributions to the country — the New York Von Steuben Day Parade is one of the largest parades in New York City every year. Chicago also holds an impressive Von Steuben Day parade, which was featured in the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. There is a also statue of him in Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C.

Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben is generally regarded as a hero in both Germany and the United States, without whom the American Revolution could never have succeeded. And while his importance to the war is absolutely significant, it seems to me that it’s important to recognize that he was also about as open as any queer person could be at the time — and that if he hadn’t been gay, he would never have left Europe to begin with, and the United States might still be British colonies.

Ken Togo

Togo Takeshi — better known as Ken Togo — was born on June 10, 1932 in Kakogawa City in the Hyogo Prefecture of Japan. He came from a highly political, very high profile family. After graduating from Kwansei Gakuin University in 1955, he worked a series of jobs ranging from chicken farm manager to bank clerk. In 1963, he caused a huge scandal for his family, when he left his respectable bank job and wife and children, openly proclaimed his homosexuality and began managing a gay bar in Himjei City. Under his management, he actually pushed the bar’s finances out of the red and it began to turn a profit — nevertheless, it closed two years after he took it over due to problems with employees and the administration. In 1968, Togo opened up a new gay bar in Tokyo which he called “Togoken” — although this bar was also destined for financial ruin.

Soon, Togo became heavily involved in politics with a political platform based around the radical queer politics — this was revolutionary in a global way. In the early ’70s in New York City and San Francisco, most queer activists were trying to get the LGBTQ+ community accepted into the “respectable” mainstream, Togo was rejecting the heteronormative mainstream culture entirely. He advocated against discrimination towards sexual minorities — not just homosexual and bisexual people, but also the BDSM community and sex workers. He advocated for gender equality — for women, and for transgender people. (Although, controversially, he did not believe that transgender people working in entertainment should get gender reassignment surgery in a train of thought that basically amounts to “artists need tension in their lives to create good art.”) He also advocated for other minorities often ostracized by Japanese society — including disabled people, children born out of wedlock. He also fully believed that capitalism was inherently bad for the disenfranchised and loudly proclaimed himself a socialist.  He fashioned himself as “the okama Togo Ken” (which translates roughly to “the faggot Ken Togo”), formed a political party called “the Miscellaneous People’s Association” in 1971 and began to run for office. Between 1971 and 1995, Togo ran for office nearly a dozen times — though he was never elected. During the ’80s, Togo also included AIDS activism as a major part of platform.

Togo’s radical politics garnered him international attention — though not always of the positive kind. (Although his only English-language interview was with The Advocate in 1983.) He lost every election he ran for — not only because of rampant homophobia and because of his radical positions — but because he, essentially, made a mockery of the Emperor. He likened the coming out experience of  queer people to the end of World War II — when the Emperor declared (at the behest of Allied forces) that he was not divine, but was now human. The Japanese people accepted this pronouncement, and Togo was certain it should be easier to accept when someone comes out as gay or transgender than when someone comes out as no-longer-a-god. He also named his cat “Chin” to mock a word for “we” reserved for use by the Emperor and liken it to slang for the penis. This did not make him a favorite person of many people in Japan.

The cover of Ken Togo’s first album

Togo also released a couple of albums, the first in 1972, with a focus on queer-themed music. He also worked occasionally as an actor, director, and occasional pornographer — always with a political bent, bringing awareness and attention to his radical views. He also began publishing a magazine called The Ken — highly political, but also flagrantly defying Japan’s censorship laws (which Togo was opposed to) through the publication of pornographic images.

For several years, he was on friendly terms with the Japan Socialist Party — until 1978. In that year, Itsuro Kosaka published a statement in the Shukan Post that decried homosexuality as a disease and Togo publicly cut all ties with the party. Around this time, much of the rest of the queer community began to feel animosity with Togo because of his publicly effeminate appearance (he frequently wore makeup and dressed quite outlandishly) and his efforts to reclaim the term “okama“. Nevertheless, when he rebranded The Ken into The Gay in 1978, it became exceedingly popular. He began holding public photoshoots of his models.

In 1987, returning to Japan from San Francisco, Togo became embroiled in scandal because, upon searching his bags, customs found numerous videos and publications that were not permitted under Japan’s censorship laws. The items were confiscated, but Togo was additionally fined under charges that he intended to distribute the items. Togo fought the charges, going to court and claiming they were for his private use. Initially, he lost the court fight — but on appeals, the court found in his favor. Unfortunately, customs appealed further and the legal battle made it all the way to Japan’s Supreme Court — which found in favor of customs, and forced Togo to pay the fine and all of the (considerable) court costs.

By 2002, Togo’s effeminate image and radical positions had set him apart from most of the queer community in Japan. At a meeting regarding the discriminatory language regarding AIDS in the media, a number of Japanese LGBTQ+ activists including Hasegawa Hiroshi and Ōtsuka Takashi spoke about how they did not feel represented by Togo’s presentation of the gay identity. Togo remained a prominent figure to many in Japan’s transgender community, however, including Miyazaki Rumiko.

Although he was less politically active in his later years, he continued to espouse his views from his small bar (BAR Togo Ken — I have no idea when he established it) every night until 2011. He passed away on April 1, 2012. His children held a small, private funeral for him — but his friends and customers held a large celebration of his life at Togo’s bar the following July 1.

Kamehameha III

Before we delve too deeply into today’s topic, I wanted to just like skim over some facts about queer culture in Hawai’i — that is, before colonizers found it. Most places that were colonized were pretty tolerant of same-sex couples before Europeans showed up (Africa, significant parts of Asia, most of the Americas) and Hawai’i is not an exception to that. In fact, pre-colonial Hawai’i encouraged a certain level of bisexuality, particularly in rulers, and these same-sex relationships were called aikāne. Typically, at least in men (although aikāne were not just for men) these were lifelong relationships that began in one’s teenage years, though they were not exclusive relationships and most people also had opposite-sex partners as well.

As I mentioned, these aikāne were particularly encouraged in the rulers of Hawai’i — but that past tense is particularly relevant. This was particularly notable in the case of Kamehameha III (born as Kauikeaouli on March 17, 1814) who became king of Hawai’i in 1825 at eleven years old. As he was still fairly young, the real power remained in the hands of the kuhina nui (basically queen regent) Kaʻahumanu who had converted to Calvinism the year before. So for the first several years of his reign, the young and impressionable Kamehameha was torn between the traditions of his people, and the devout Calvinist Christianity of missionaries from the United States. Kamehameha was probably the first king of Hawai’i who was not actually encouraged to have aikāne. Furthermore, there’s a handful of records indicating the Ka’ahumanu had noticed Kamehameha eyeing boys and had been actively discouraging that.

As a teenager, Kamehameha rebelled — in 1831, he publicly announced his aikāne with Kaomi, though the relationship wasn’t exactly new at this point. The missionaries did not like this because he had originally been a Protestant minister who abandoned his faith for this relationship (which they considered sinful), and a lot of Hawaiians didn’t like this because Kaomi was half-Tahitian. When Ka’ahumanu died in 1832, the council of chiefs attempted to install another kuhina nui — Kamehameha’s sister Kina’u. Instead Kamehameha declared that Kaomi was his ke-lii-ki (literally “entrenched king” but basically, joint ruler). Now, descriptions of the period of the next few years — called the “time of Kaomi” — make it sound super hedonistic, with the “return of evil ways that had been stamped out” and super corrupt with Kaomi “giving away land to landless men,” but the truth is probably that the “evil ways” were Hawaiian traditions like hula dancing and the “landless men” were commoners who the council were refusing to lease land to in favor of leasing it to wealthy people or people they especially liked (because that was a thing that had been happening). But under Kaomi’s co-rule, distilleries started brewing alcohol again so I guess that’s a little hedonistic (for the 1830’s).

Anyways, what essentially began was a brief struggle for power between the council (and Kina’u) and Kamehameha (and Kaomi). In 1833, he tried to quash the whole struggle by formally announcing that the king was the only person with the authority to make laws for Hawai’i. Obviously this wasn’t a super popular decision with like….everyone else with any authority on any of the islands or in the continental United States. Well, the chiefs were pretty eager to put all the blame for this on Kaomi (don’t we always blame the husband first?), and so they started plotting to assassinate him.

It took them most of a year to come up with this plot, and let me tell you: what a waste of a year! I mean, this should be embarrassing. So one of the chiefs — Ka-iki-o-ʻewa —  went to the home at Kaomi and Kamehameha shared, armed with a club, and got a servant named Ka-ihu-hanuna to help him inside. Ka-iki-o-ʻewa got Kaomi and tied his hands behind has back — Kaomi did not resist at all. Probably because he knew how bad this plan was. (Like, really, why is a chief getting his own hands dirty in this?) Then things start to go south, because Kinaʻu shows up and like freaks out. Not because she doesn’t want to get rid of Kaomi, but because she’s smart enough to figure out that if he’s murdered the king is going to be really angry with them. (She really gave this five seconds of thought and realized everything that was wrong with this plan that the council of chiefs had spent a year on.) So then, Kamehameha comes out of his house, and the servant rushes over to him and is basically like “Ka-iki-o-ʻewa is trying to kill your man, and I had nothing to do with it!” Obviously Kamehameha stopped what was happening, but shockingly he let Ka-iki-o-ʻewa leave and continue being a chief after basically a stern talking at.

But the assassination attempt changed something and Kamehameha began to be more cooperative with the chiefs. A lot of distilleries were broken up, including one owned by Kaomi. Kaomi was briefly exiled to the island of Kaua’i, but he did secretly reunite with Kamehameha in Lahaina. Kaomi died in 1835.

Following the death of his lover, Kamehameha acquiesced to many more of the council of chief’s requests. Kina’u officially became kuhina nui, ruling alongside Kamehameha and taking on the name Kaʻahumanu II. In 1836, he married a woman named Kalama Hakaleleponi Kapakuhaili. He and Queen Kalama had two children, who both died as infants. Kamehameha went on to have several other affairs with both men and women, bearing twin illegitimate children (one of whom died, and one of whom he adopted and legitimized).

Kamehameha’s reign was pretty eventful from here on out (as if it hadn’t been already) — and long. Really long. In 1839, having learned about some of the Western ideas of law and government, he and several of his advisers created Hawai’i’s first declaration of human rights. They also crafted the Edict of Toleration which legalized Catholicism in Hawai’i — an act necessary to avoid a war with France. In 1840, they crafted Hawai’i’s first Constitution.

In February of 1843, the Paulet Affair began. Lord George Paulet, a British captain, managed to convince Kamehameha to surrender the Hawaiian islands to the British crown. However, Kamehameha was mostly attempting to avoid bloodshed — he had missives sent to London, enlisting the aid of the American ship the USS Boston, in order to advocate for the kingdom of Hawai’i’s sovereignty. Admiral Richard Darton Thomas was sent from London to Hawai’i to ensure their sovereignty would be respected. A Hawaiian flag raising ceremony marked the end of the British occupation — the site of this ceremony is now called Thomas Square. Kamehameha made a speech on the occasion, a line of which became the motto for the state of Hawaii and has been immortalized on the Seal of Hawaii: “Ua Mau ke Ea o ka ʻĀina i ka Pono” which loosely translates into “The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness.”

By 1848, under Kamehameha’s reign, the kingdom of Hawai’i had formalized a judicial system and a system of land ownership (prior to this, land in Hawaii could only be leased.) Because of the new system of land ownership, the Great Māhele redistributed the land between commoners, the government, and nobility on March 7, 1848. The intent was to secure titles to Hawaiian people, but in actually it caused many people to be separated from land they’d held for a very long time — causing a great deal of unrest and upheaval. It’s been called one of most important events in Hawaiian history and its ramifications are lasting. Around that same time, tensions began to arise again between France and Hawai’i. Determined that a small show of force would bring Kamehameha’s government into line, the French consul in Honolulu Guillaume Patrice Dillon ordered a corvette come to Honolulu and sit in the harbor, intimidatingly.

The corvette Gasendi arrived on August 12, 1849 under the command of Admiral Louis Tromelin. Tromelin learned of high tariffs on French brandy and — even more upsetting for him — learned that the primarily Protestant American Board of Commisioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) was trying to shut both Catholic and Protestant trade out of the kingdom. Dillon and Tromelin quickly composed a list of ten demands and sent them to Kamehameha on August 22. Kamehameha ignored the demands, and so on August 25 140 French marines from the Gasendi landed on the shores of Honolulu, took over Fort Honolulu (which had been evacuated and was only defended by two men who just sort of immediately gave up). The marines sabotaged guns, threw kegs of gun powder into the harbor, caused over $100,000 of property damage to government and public buildings, and stole the king’s yacht (which was never recovered). Finally, they went back into the fort. Kamehameha and the people of Honolulu were unimpressed. On August 30, they made a show of organizing a counterattack against the fort, but then never attacked — however, it was enough to make the marines in the fort stay up all night, doubling their guard and sending out patrols. On September 5, Tromelin withdrew his men and Dillon, and left Hawai’i.

This was the last major event of Kamehameha’s life. American tourists discovered Hawai’i as a winter destination in the 1850’s, a handful attempted to spark rebellions against Kamehameha but none ever found the support they needed. A new Constitution was written in 1852, which he signed. He formally declared his neutrality in the Crimean War on May 16, 1854. In August, he negotiated but never signed a treaty of annexation which would have made Hawaii a state. And then, on December 15, he died. He ruled for 29 years and 192 days, making him the longest reigning king in the history of Hawai’i. In 1865, he was reburied in the Royal Mausoleum of Hawaii (because it wasn’t built yet when he died). On July 31, 2018 — as part of the ceremonies celebrating the 175th anniversary of the restoration of Hawaiian sovereignty at the end of the Paulet Affair — a twelve foot bronze statue of Kamehameha III was unveiled in Thomas Square.

Heroes of Stonewall: Danny Garvin

An important fact about the Stonewall uprising is that things were pretty chaotic. There were things going on inside the bar, outside the bar, and more than a few participants — at least initially — were intoxicated. Despite Craig Rodwell‘s best efforts, the riots were pretty much ignored by the press. So a lot of what we know has had to be cobbled together from a handful of eyewitness accounts. One of the most knowledgeable of those accounts comes from Danny Garvin.

Danny Garvin was born on March 1, 1949. He grew up in New York, raised as a Roman Catholic by his two Irish immigrant parents — Michael Joseph Garvin and Mary Theresa Kelly Garvin. In his youth, like all of the boys of his neighborhood, he was a member of a gang — the Ramrods. Garvin’s mother died while he was very young, and he was mostly raised by his father — who returned to Ireland when Garvin was 17 years old, after enlisting his son in the United States Navy.

Working as a Navy cook, stationed in Brooklyn, Garvin began coming out of the closet. Coming out proved quite difficult, especially given his religious upbringing. Drunk and off the base one night, Garvin sought out the only other gay man his age that he knew of — but he was soundly rejected. Reeling, Garvin attempted suicide and then called a psychiatrist who told him to admit himself to Bellevue Hospital. The Navy transferred him to St. Albans Naval Medical Hospital.

This presented a very serious dilemma — if he talked about his actual problems with the Navy, he’d be dishonorably discharged and would make him unemployable to most reputable businesses. Finally, Garvin signed a document stating that his psychological breakdown was rooted in his mother’s early death, and he was honorably discharged. He was discharged on St. Patrick’s Day, 1967 — roughly two weeks after he had turned 18. Deciding he needed to celebrate, he ventured to the only gay bar he knew off — Julius’. When he was there, he was told about a new bar opening up around the corner: the Stonewall Inn.

Although on his first visit, Garvin was mostly shocked to see men dancing together, he became a regular and even dated the main doorman (“Blonde Frankie“) for a time. Though he was initially living on the streets and hustling for a living — an experience he would carry with him the rest of his life — he ultimately found his way into living in what David Carter describes in his book Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution as a “gay hippie commune.” Garvin began smoking pot, and started selling LSD at Stonewall.

On the actual evening of the Stonewall riots, however, Garvin was not inside the bar. He’d planned to spend the night at a new gay club called Danny’s. (Like we wouldn’t all always be at any bar we could pretend was named after us, right?) He bumped into Keith Murdoch and the two went back to the commune to smoke weed and get it on. After that, they decided the night was still young and they wanted to go out dancing — and that’s when they found the riot.

By the time they got there, the crowd was attacking the police wagon and the police had barricaded themselves inside the bar. A group had ripped a parking meter out of the ground and were using it as a battering ram to get inside. Garvin jumped in, egging on the crowd, jeering at the cops, and generally protesting — but he avoided partaking in any of the violent action, partly because he considered himself a pacifist but also largely so he could avoid going to jail and thereby publicly outing himself — and ruining any chances he had at a career. He watched the infamous chorus line that had mocked the cops trying to clear the streets — and the brutality with which the police broke it up.

Like virtually everyone else involved in the riots, Garvin was changed by the experience. He became a proud activist, marching in the Christopher Street Liberation Day parades (which would later become the Pride parades we now know and love). He was a roommate to activist Morty Manford, and encouraged Manford to come out to his parents — who would then found PFLAG. In the early 80’s, Garvin gathered together a group of gays from AA to march in the Pride parade as a group called Sober Together.

Always an advocate for homeless queer youth because of his experiences on the street, Garvin became a very involved volunteer for the Ali Forney Center in New York City after it opened in 2002. But perhaps his most important role in these later years was as a witness to history — he was interviewed by David Carter for his book Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution — which was released in 2004. He began appearing in documentaries, especially about Stonewall and the gay rights movement, in 2008. Most famously he appeared in the 2010 documentary Stonewall Uprising where he summarized the importance of the riots:

“We became a people. We didn’t necessarily know where we were going yet, you know, what organizations we were going to be or how things would go, but we became something I, as a person, could all of a sudden grab onto, that I couldn’t grab onto when I’d go to a subway T-room as a kid, or a 42nd Street movie theater, you know, or being picked up by some dirty old man. You know, all of a sudden, I had brothers and sisters, you know, which I didn’t have before. There was no going back now…. We had discovered a power that we weren’t even aware that we had.“

Michelle Obama, Danny Garvin, Martin Boyce, and Barack Obama

Throughout his work as a witness to Stonewall, Garvin befriended several other “Stonewall veterans” including Martin Boyce and Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt. When President Barack Obama mentioned Stonewall, Garvin began a correspondence with him — impressing upon him the need to continue fighting for equality for the LGBTQIA+ community. In his initial letter he wrote, “I still have not gotten to dance that dance I started 44 years ago. The big joyous ‘I Am A Completely Free Gay American Dance’ yet.” Obama invited Garvin as a special guest to the White House’s Pride celebration on June 30, 2014.

However, Danny’s final years were plagued by health problems. He suffered from COPD, caused by years of smoking, and also developed liver cancer. He passed away on December 9, 2014 at 65 years old. While he may not have gotten to finish that “I Am A Completely Free Gay American Dance” that he dreamed of, his work for our community helped get all of us that much closer to it.

Heroes of Stonewall: Craig Rodwell

Most of the people who were at the Stonewall uprising in 1969 are primarily known for their involvement with the riot — even though most of them went on to be heavily involved in activism in the following decades. Craig Rodwell is another story. Craig was so heavily involved in activism both before and after the riots that his presence there is basically a footnote.

Rodwell was born October 31, 1940 in Chicago. His parents separated before his first birthday, and for the beginning of his life he was sent away to for “day care” — this day care, however, made him start doing laundry and working in the kitchen as soon as he was old enough. When he was six, his mother realized that maybe this wasn’t the best arrangement if she wanted to keep custody of him and so she sent him to a Christian Science school for “problem boys” called Chicago Junior School. He attended that school for seven years, where he got a reputation for being rebellious — but also for being a “sissy.”

By all accounts, the “problem boys” there frequently fooled around sexually — though with nothing serious behind it. At fourteen, Rodwell pursued a relationship with an adult man. When the two were caught by police, who refused to believe Rodwell when he insisted he’d started the relationship and was at fault, the man was arrested and sentenced to five years in prison for having sex with a minor. The police tried to encourage him to lie in his testimony, asking him to say that the man had paid him money. Rodwell refused, and was threatened with juvenile detention — ultimately he was just ordered by the court to see a psychiatrist, but the experience colored his view of the legal system for the rest of his life.

Rodwell also fully believed the Christian Science teachings he was learning — particularly the idea that “truth is power and that truth is the greatest good.” As a result, after he graduated and began attending Sullivan High School, he enrolled himself in a Christian science Sunday school. It was in these classes he learned that Christian Science didn’t approve of homosexuality — something Rodwell determined he was going to have to change. After high school, Rodwell relocated to Boston to study ballet before moving to New York City in 1958 — intentionally moving to Greenwich Village, where he’d heard there was a large queer community. Rodwell was hoping to become involved in the Mattachine Society.

Unfortunately, the Mattachine Society required its members to be 21 or older. Rodwell also couldn’t get into any of the gay bars yet — so he spent his time in parks, connecting with the gay community on the streets. This made him pretty vulnerable to the police, and he was involved in more than one scrape with them. But this only made him more radical.

In 1962, Rodwell was dating Harvey Milk — who was still in the closet (and just, generally, had a lot of growing to do before he becomes the Milk we all know and love). This was Rodwell’s first serious relationship. Rodwell’s outspoken activism was unsettling for Milk, and he also blamed Rodwell for an STD that he contracted. (Not unreasonable, really.) In September, Rodwell was arrested for resisting the police when they swept through a popular cruising area of Jacob Riis Park. While in jail, Rodwell was physically abused by one of the guards. When he was released from jail, Milk dumped him. His self-confidence rattled, Rodwell tried to end his own life. Fortunately for the entire queer community, the attempt failed. He left New York to travel for a couple of years.

In 1964, Rodwell returned to New York and devoted himself to activism for the “homophile” community (as we called ourselves then — I am so glad we don’t use that term anymore). He was volunteering with the Mattachine Society — using his legal name, which was a rarity in that time — and even serving as their vice president. He founded the Mattachine Young Adults organization, and was an early member of the East Coast Homophile Organizations (ECHO) — which coordinated various homophile groups from around the eastern seaboard. On September 19, he and several other notable activists including Randy Wicker, Jefferson Poland, and Renee Cafiero staged a protest against the military’s exclusion of gay service members — and the practice of dishonorably discharging those who were found out. This is officially recognized as the first organized LGBTQ+ protest in United States history (though I suspect there were some before that we just don’t acknowledge).

In a coordinated protest with ECHO, Rodwell and Wicker led a protest at the United Nations Plaza in New York on April 18, 1965 — joined by Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, and roughly 25 other protesters. Days after this protest, the sit-in protest at Dewey’s began in Philadelphia. With the other leaders of ECHO, including Frank Kameny and Barbara Gittings, it was decided they needed regular protests to remind the nation about the plight of the queer community — they could not afford to only protest when there was a crisis happening in Cuba or in Philadelphia. And so, on July 4, 1965, the first of the Annual Reminders was held at Independence Hall in Philadelphia.

In 1966, Rodwell was ejected from a bar called Julius’ for wearing a pin that read “Equality for Homosexuals.” On April 21, with the help of John Timmons and Mattachine president Dick Leitsch, Rodwell held a “sip-in” at the bar. This was specifically to protest a rule by State Liquor Authority that prohibited homosexuals from gathering in places that served alcohol. Rodwell and his cohorts held that the rule encouraged bribery and corruption amongst the police. The publicity from this sit-in led directly to that particular rule ending.

In order to try make the Mattachine Society more accessible, Rodwell proposed they open a storefront. When the idea was rejected, he cut his ties with the organization. In November of 1967, Rodwell opened the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop — the country’s first store that focused on queer authors. The store was so named because Oscar Wilde was the most notable homosexual he could think of and he wanted absolutely not confusion about what the store was all about. The place functioned as more than just a store — Rodwell also envisioned it as a community center that didn’t have age restrictions and didn’t rely on alcohol (or the organized crime families that owned most of the gay bars in the city). To that end, he found the Homophile Youth Movement in Neighborhoods (HYMN) out of the bookshop, and led their rallies in that year. In 1968, he started publishing their periodical HYMNAL. Harvey Milk — now friends with Rodwell — was a frequent customer of the store, and it would later be the inspiration his own shop/community center/campaign headquarters Castro Camera in San Francisco. Rodwell also met Fred Sargeant at his store. Sargeant became heavily involved in HYMN and a romantic relationship blossomed.

On June 28, 1969 police raided the Stonewall Inn. (Did you forget, in all of this, that this was coming up too?) Rodwell and Sargeant were walking through Greenwich Village when they happened to see a crowd gathering outside the bar — and caught the beginning of the riots. Rodwell was a leader in fighting back, and led the crowd in various “gay power” chants. He also had a camera with him, and tried to take pictures to document the event. Unfortunately, none of the pictures were successfully developed — which is extra sad because we have hardly any pictures from the first night of riots (even though Rodwell also used a pay phone to call the press and let them know what was happening). Nevertheless, he did share his account of the night — which he described as “one of those moments in history that, if you were there, you knew, this is it, this is what we’ve been waiting for.”

The next day, Rodwell created a flyer — which HYMN helped him to disseminate through Greenwich Village — that read “Get the Mafia and the Cops Out of Gay Bars.” The flyers helped encourage further protests the next several nights — protests Rodwell participated in as well.

After the annual reminder of that year — which took place a week after Stonewall — Rodwell decided that the needs of the community had been changed after the riots. He began writing a resolution in his store. In November, Rodwell, Sargeant, Ellen Broidy, and Linda Rhodes proposed the resolution at a Philadelphia meeting of ECHO to change the annual reminders. Instead of happening on July 4 in Philadelphia, they proposed, there would be simultaneous demonstrations in cities across the country on June 28. This would be called Christopher Street Liberation Day, and there would be no dress code (as the annual reminders had had) or age limitations. And so Pride began.

Craig Rodwell and his mother in the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop

Despite he tremendous work so far, Rodwell found he’d never really been able to address the homophobia in Christian Science. In 1970, he placed a biography of Mary Baker Eddy in a very visible place in his store in order to meet other gay Christian Scientists. Meanwhile, he was continuing to work on advocating for queer rights. He is often credited with inventing the word “heterosexism” in January of 1971, when he wrote “After a few years of this kind of ‘liberated’ existence such people become oblivious and completely unseeing of straight predjudice and – to coin a phrase – the ‘hetero-sexism’ surrounding them virtually 24 hours a day.” In 1973, the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop moved from its address on Mercer Street to the corner of Christopher Street and Gay Street.

In 1978 Rodwell formed Gay People in Christian Science (GPICS) with Ray Spitale, Bob McCullogh, and Bob Mackenroth. While they were not the only gay Christian Science organization in the country, they were the only one actively challenging the church’s policies — actively challenging the excommunication of three of their members. This quickly became Rodwell’s primary focus for his activism. GPICS created an eight-page pamphlet entitled “Gay People in Christian Science?” which they proceeded to mail to every Christian Science church, college organization, and practitioner that they could find. Overall, they mailed out 8,000 copies. They then made plans to hand out the pamphlets at the 1980 Annual Meeting of the Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston. To organize this in the least offensive way possible, Rodwell alerted security for the event of their intentions.

When they arrived, they discovered extremely heightened security and police presence. Undeterred, they set up their table and began distributing flyers. They were quickly informed that the booth was illegal and that they needed to leave. The group obeyed, though Rodwell and a handful of others remained on the premises and handed out their pamphlets more discreetly. Unfortunately, the pamphlet wasn’t enough to change the church’s minds and in 1981, the church fired Chris Madsen from the Christian Science Monitor for being a lesbian. GPICS returned to the annual meeting that year, this time fired up. Instead of simply handing out pamphlets, they engaged in loud and disruptive protests.

In the years that followed, queer activism within Christian Science moved to become primarily focused to areas in the Midwest. Although Rodwell remained involved, he took on a much less significant leadership role. He remained heavily involved in queer activism for the remainder of his life.

In 1992, Rodwell received the Lambda Literary Award for Publisher’s Service. In May of that year, he was diagnosed with stomach cancer. In March of 1993, he sold the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop to Bill Offenbaker. He passed away on June 18 that year. It was not until 1999 that the Christian Science Church finally began to allow gay and lesbian members.

It’s honestly hard to think of anyone who, in our history, has been so devoted to our community and done so much for us. I find his name crop up in almost everything that happened for our community in New York in the late ’60s and early ’70s, and for some reason I’m always surprised. And given his influence on Harvey Milk, what he accomplished for us actually extended all the way to San Francisco.

Heroes of Stonewall: Jackie Hormona

I wish this article was going to be longer, but I have honestly scoured the internet for more information on this person, and I have almost nothing. Nevertheless, Jackie Hormona contributed the Stonewall riots — and he should be acknowledged for what he did.

Rumors flurried about who began the actual riots outside the bar. Legend has it that a queen threw the first brick, right after Stormé Delarverie was forced into the back of a police wagon. In the confusion, eye witnesses recounted three different queens in that action — Marsha P. Johnson became the most popular of these names — probably because she was already the most well known, but by her own recounting of the event she wasn’t there yet. The other two were Jackie Hormona and Zazu Nova.

It’s honestly proven very difficult to get any other information about these two. Jackie Hormona’s birth name might have been Jack Daniel Whitehall (I say that because I saw that written not very definitively on a not a very reliable website, but it’s the only other name I’ve found.) Jackie was a sex worker who regularly hustled on Christopher Street. Though Jackie used a drag name, Jackie wasn’t exactly a drag queen — he wore subtle make up to enhance his looks. He had a reputation for being much more level-headed than the other queens — and moral. He would break up fights, he would stop the street workers from stealing from each other, but he also stood up against the police when they harassed the local street queens. But Jackie also had a reputation as being kind of a loner and keeping a distance from the rest of the queers on the streets of Greenwich Village, which is why there’s not a lot more information I can find.

See that blond over on the left? That’s Jackie Hormona!

Jackie was definitely at the riots on the first night. We know this because he appears in a very famous picture that I guarantee you’ve seen. In fact, it’s already been on this site once!

I will say, I don’t personally think Jackie Hormona was the one who threw the “first brick” (if that’s even a thing that happened and not just legend that came out of this) because most witnesses who were there and saw it claimed it was a drag queen. And while Jackie was certainly associated with drag queens, street queens, and transgender women, he would have been hard to actually mistake for one if you saw him throwing a brick. I think his reputation for standing up to the police led some people to believe, when they saw him there, that he must have started things off. Which is not unreasonable. Even if that’s not the case, though, I’m quite sure he jumped right in.

Jackie Hormona, all the way on the right, marching with the Gay Liberation Front in Times Square

Jackie also became quite involved with the Gay Liberation Front that formed after the Stonewall riots. There are two pictures of him with GLF banners (both in this article!). After that I can’t find much of anything except that he may have been one of the victims of the AIDS epidemic.

Heroes of Stonewall: Marsha P. Johnson

Although she regularly said her middle initial stood for “Pay it no mind”, Marsha P. Johnson proved to be a difficult person not to notice. Though Johnson is commonly referred to using female pronouns (she/her/hers) — and I’ll be doing that here — her actual gender identity is a bit of a mystery. She variously described herself as gay, a transvestite, and as a (drag) queen — though words like “transgender” really weren’t being widely used yet during her lifetime. My personal opinion is that she would probably identify as gender non-conforming or non-binary, but make your own judgments.

Johnson was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey on August 24, 1945 — one of seven children — and was named Malcolm Michaels Jr by her parents, Malcolm Michaels Sr and Alberta Claiborne. They were not, from all accounts, a particularly open-minded family and Claiborne was said to believe that being a homosexual was like being “lower than dog.” Johnson was raised in the African Methodist Episcopal Church and remained a devout, practicing Christian for her entire life.

At the age of five, Johnson began to wear dresses — but stopped because she was harassed and teased by neighborhood boys. Some time during this period, Johnson was sexually assaulted by a boy who was roughly the age of 13. In 1963, Johnson graduated from Edison High School and promptly moved to New York City with $15 and a bag of clothing. By 1966, she was waiting tables, engaging in sex work, and living on the streets of the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan.

She also began to perform as a drag queen — initially going by the name “Black Marsha” before settling on Marsha P. Johnson. She was often recognizable for having flowers in her hair — something she began doing after sleeping under flower sorting tables in Manhattan’s Flower District. She usually had on bright colored wigs, shiny dresses, and long flowing robes. Marsha was known to be peaceful and fun, but there was a violent and short-tempered side to her personality (which her friends commonly called “Malcolm”) — leading some to suspect that she suffered from schizophrenia. Between her sex work and her occasional violent outbursts, Johnson claimed to have been arrested more than a hundred times.

When the Stonewall Inn began to permit women and drag queens inside, Johnson was one of the first to begin regularly visiting the bar. Some witnesses have even credited her with starting off the riots in 1969. Although this claim has certainly gained traction and become the popular version of events, she likely was not the woman who sparked off the Stonewall Riots by throwing the legendary “first brick” — this was also rumored, and was perhaps more likely to be Jackie Hormona or Zazu Nova by eyewitnesses — Johnson did have one particularly iconic, though unconfirmed, moment in the riots. She is said to have shouted “I got my civil rights!” and thrown a shot glass at a mirror. ( Some said this — the “shot glass heard round the world” — was the moment that started the riots, but Johnson herself disputed this. According to Johnson, word of the riots reached her and she immediately went to collect her friend Sylvia Rivera so they could join in — but Rivera was sleeping on a bench. According to Johnson, she arrived at about 2:00 am, forty minutes after the riots began. (I guess word traveled fast!) There are many reports that on the second night of rioting, Johnson climbed up a street lamp with a purse that was loaded down with a brick — which she dropped through the windshield of a police car. Though there’s a lot of stories about those riots, and a lot of confusion about the details it is very clear that Johnson was there and made a noticeable impact.

Although she’d been an activist before, Johnson became a real leader in the LGBT movements that followed the riots. In 1970, she and Sylvia Rivera founded the Street Transvestites Action Revolutionaries (STAR) — an organization that provided community support for transgender youth. She also joined the Gay Liberation Front and participated in the Christopher Street Liberation Pride rally that commemorated the first anniversary of Stonewall (and was, essentially, the creation of the Pride festivals we celebrate.) At one rally in the early 70’s, Johnson was asked by a member of the press what they were protesting for –Johnson shouted into the reporter’s microphone “Darling, I want my gay rights now!”

Johnson once said, “I was no one, nobody, from Nowheresville until I became a drag queen. That’s what made me in New York, that’s what made me in New Jersey, that’s what made me in the world.” In 1972, she began to perform periodically with the international drag troupe Hot Peaches. She was also continuing to work as a sex worker, taking the money she (and Rivera) earned from that business to help pay the rent for the housing for transgender youth that STAR had established that year. Johnson also took on an active role mentoring all of the youth in their care, becoming a “drag mother” even to those who were not performers. Although STAR declined and closed in 1973, it was a groundbreaking organization and the shelter that it provided queer youth was truly revolutionary.

In 1973, Johnson also performed with the Angels of Light drag troupe — taking on the role of “The Gypsy Queen” in their production of “The Enchanted Miracle”. That same year both Johnson and Rivera were banned from participating in New York’s gay pride parade — the committee organizing the parade felt that drag queens and transvestites brought negative attention and gave the cause “a bad name.” In response, Rivera and Johnson marched ahead of the beginning of the parade.

In 1975, Andy Warhol took pictures of Johnson for his “Ladies and Gentlemen” series. Johnson’s success as an activist and a performer, as well as her regular appearances throughout the decade, earned her the nickname “Mayor of Christopher Street.”

By 1979, Johnson’s mental health was beginning to decline quite severely. Her aggressive side was coming out more often, and a Village Voice article called “The Drag of Politics” listed all of the Manhattan gay bars from which Johnson had been banned. In 1980, a friend named Randy Wicker invited Johnson to stay with him for a particularly cold night and the two remained roommates for the rest of Johnson’s life. This was — as far as I can tell — the first time Johnson had a permanent address since moving to New York in 1963.

In the 1980’s, Johnson began to work with ACT UP as an organizer and marshal, and was a prolific AIDS activist. She made this her primary focus for the last few years of her life. On July 6, 1992 — just after that years New York Pride festivities — she was found dead in the Hudson River with a large wound in the back of her head. The police ruled her death a suicide — despite pressure from the community and the fact that she had a wound in the back of her head. One witness had spoken of Johnson’s fragile mental health to the police — which was all the police, who had no interest in investigating a black queer person’s death, needed despite witness testimonies also describing Johnson being harassed by a gang. Another witness claimed to have heard a man brag about killing a drag queen named Marsha. The police did allow Seventh Avenue to be closed so that Johnson’s friends could spread her ashes out over the river.

In 2012, an activist named Mariah Lopez was finally successful in convincing the police to re-open Johnson’s case and investigate it as a homicide. That was also the year that the first documentary about Johnson was released: Pay It No Mind — The Life and Times of Marsha P. Johnson. This documentary included footage from an interview that had been filmed only ten days before Johnson’s death. Fictionalized versions of Johnson also appeared in the films Stonewall (released in 2015) and Happy Birthday Marsha! (released in 2016.) In 2017, another documentary was released — The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson — which followed the Anti-Violence Project’s Victoria Cruz investigating Johnson’s death on her own. Despite all of these tributes, it wasn’t until 2018 that the New York Times published an obituary for her.

Johnson — with her friend Sylvia Rivera — will be honored with a monument in Greenwich Village, near Stonewall. This is perhaps most fitting for Johnson, since she was quite insistent about moving the Stonewall monument from Ohio to Christopher Street in New York City in 1992 — famously saying “How many people have died for these two little statues to be put in the park to recognize gay people? How many years does it take for people to see that we’re all brothers and sisters and human beings in the human race? I mean how many years does it take for people to see that we’re all in this rat race together?”

Johnson may not have “thrown the first brick” at Stonewall, but she led the fight for LGBTQ+ equality in every other way. Randy Wicker said of Johnson that she “rose above being a man or a woman, rose above being black or white, rose above being straight or gay”, while Rupaul described her as “the true Drag Mother.”

So, while we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, let’s all pay plenty of mind to Marsha P. Johnson — and to the other heroes who stood up that day and said “Darling, I want my gay rights now!”