Marsha P. Johnson: The Saint at Stonewall Inn

In addition to pioneering trans rights, she was a practicing Catholic.

Author’s note: The term “transvestite” is used in quotes from source material. The term “transgender” is a term that came into usage decades after the peak of Marsha P. Johnson’s work.

Marsha P. Johnson, the Black queer activist who allegedly spurred the Stonewall riots, is known for her flower crowns and her role in the American queer rights movement. Her friends described her in the documentary Pay it No Mind as a vibrant presence in the community. Archivist Agosto Machado even described her as a sort of “patron saint” for those who did drag or otherwise transgressed the boundaries of the binary.

Describing herself as “being married to Jesus Christ” at sixteen years old, Johnson practiced Christianity for the duration of her life. She went on to describe Jesus as “the only man [she] can trust” and friendly spirit who listens to her problems and doesn’t laugh at her. In an era where the only “safe” spaces for queerness were bars and sex work, Johnson often found herself sleeping in odd places like movie theaters and even in a flower shop. That flower shop enabled her to curate her signature image: something natural and unique among the extravagant and “serious” queens.

Having been to some of the “strangest churches” in her area, Johnson attended St. Mary’s Church in Hoboken. One of the people who knew her found her prostrate in front of the statue of the Virgin Mary while another found her “dressed in velvet” and “throwing glitter”. As a Catholic, Marsha P. Johnson believed that all people were “brothers and sisters in Christ” and regularly prayed for people who were dying of AIDS. She also frequented other places of worship such as a Greek church, a Baptist church, and even a synagogue.

During her lifetime, Johnson called herself a “drag queen” and a “transvestite”. However, many people today consider her transgender due to shifts in queer terminology. Today, many people would describe a drag queen as someone, usually a cisgender man, who adopts exaggerated femininity as part of a stage performance. In the case of Marsha P. Johnson, her feminine identity was not a costume or a character. It was who she was regardless of her attire at the time.

Part of Johnson’s work included forming STAR (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries) and housing other trans and gender-nonconforming people, first in an abandoned trailer, and then in “a burned out building on the Lower East Side”. In addition to housing queens, STAR aimed to end employment discrimination, police harassment, and “exploitative practices” in transgender medicine. STAR also supported “transvestites of both sexes” and the right to “free dress and adornment” for the broader queer community.

Marsha P. Johnson’s devotion to her faith and to the queer community show that queerness and Christianity can not only coexist, but fuel each other. Her emphasis on community care and nonjudgment closely parallel the teachings of Jesus, something that seems to be lost in Christianity today. Groups like STAR also laid the groundwork for understanding the unique needs of transgender people, even if they didn’t use that terminology at the time. Her memory not only lives on as a Black trans woman who threw the first brick (which is disputed), but as a sort of patron saint for later generations of queer Christians struggling to reconcile their identity and their faith.