The Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) House (By Katie Steele)
The four-room Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries House, referred to most commonly as the “STAR House”, was located at 213 East 2nd Street in Manhattan’s East Village. This site was occupied by the organization from November 1970 to July 1971(1), when the group was evicted from the property(2). This building is no longer standing and was demolished in the 1980s(3).
In his book Stonewall, historian and gay rights activist Martin Duberman writes that, prior to its location at 213 East 2nd Street, the STAR “house” was “a parked trailer truck in an outdoor parking lot in Greenwich Village,” a venue which was known to be occupied by around twenty transgender youth at any given time(4).
Founded in November 1970, Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries was one of many LGBTQ+-focused groups established in the wake of the 1969 Stonewall uprising(5) in the midst of the Gay Liberation Movement. This activist organization, co-founded by Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson, grew out of a sit-in which took place at New York University’s Weinstein Hall in September of 1970. The sit-in, aimed at protesting the cancellation of a gay dance event, was met by a group of police officers who forcibly removed the people in attendance, a tactic which infuriated those who would go on to found STAR in response(6).
The Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries’ property, or STAR House, was rented with the intention of housing transgender individuals (primarily “street queens”) who were living on the streets of Manhattan(7) , a demographic which struggled to acquire beds in local shelters(8). STAR member Bubbles Rose Lee, though not an organizational founder, spearheaded the acquisition of the STAR house at 213 East 2nd Street in 1970(9). More than simply housing transgender youth, who were frequently found living or gathering on New York City piers, STAR provided clothing and support to them as well(10). STAR’s efforts were not limited to transgender youth, and the organization was known to extend offers of housing to cisgender queer youth, in today’s terminology. Sylvia Rivera once stated that “STAR was for the street gay people, the street homeless people, and anybody that needed help at that time”(11). STAR developed a secondary mission: to advocate for the inclusion of transgender people, and more pointedly transgender women, in the gay movement. The leaders of the Gay Liberation Movement of the 1960s and 1970s had historically excluded and even mocked the transgender community, a sentiment which Rivera echoed in saying "...my [queer] brothers and sisters kept on using us when they needed us, but they weren't treating us fairly”(12).
In 1970, The STAR organization and its president, Ms. Rivera, became members of an organization which centered around revolutionary Puerto Rican young people titled the Young Lords Party. In the fall of that same year, STAR joined this group of revolutionaries in a demonstration against police repression. STAR’s role in this demonstration would mark one of the organization’s first public gatherings(13).
The Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries, while being the only organization of its time and place with a specific focus on supporting transgender youth facing homelessness, emerged around the same times as two New York City organizations centered around queer youth. These organizations were Gay Youth (GY) and the Gay International Youth Society of George Washington High School. In an article written for the Journal of LGBT Youth, Dr. John Cappucci explains that the youth element was critical to the queer liberation movement, coining this subset the “Gay Liberation Youth Movement”(14).
STAR would remain in operation for a short period after the loss of it’s house and disbanded in 1973 following Christopher Street Liberation Day, a celebration and march which was a precursor to today’s Pride events. Throughout this march, Rivera and her fellow STAR members were met with harassment from onlookers and cisgender queer people alike who did not believe in STAR’s mission and/or did not believe that the transgender community should be a part of the Gay Liberation Movement. The activist organization was, however, temporarily resurrected by Rivera in 2001 in response to the violent murder of transgender woman Amanda Milan in 2000 and renamed “Street Transgender Action Revolutionaries”(15).
STAR co-founder and founding President Sylvia Rivera is most widely known for her involvement in the Stonewall Riots(16). Her contributions to transgender liberation, however, extend far beyond this one event. Rivera worked tirelessly for decades to garner support and acceptance for transgender individuals, both from those in the queer community and from those outside of it, and was known for being a politically disruptive presence(17). Rivera was only nineteen years old when she founded STAR and, by that age, had already lived and worked on the streets for more than half of her life. Prior to founding and working for STAR, Rivera was a member, organizer, and writer for Street Transvestites for Gay Power, an organizational precursor to STAR(18). Around the same time that STAR disbanded in 1973, Rivera left the movement altogether when she was nearly denied the opportunity to speak at a Pride march. She stepped back from public activism for around two decades, returning to her efforts immediately after her friend Marsha P. Johnson died under mysterious circumstances in 1992. Rivera died of complications of liver cancer in February of 2002 at the age of fifty(19).
STAR co-founder and Vice President(20) Marsha P. Johnson was a key and outspoken leader in the gay liberation movement as well. Like Rivera, Johnson is widely known for her involvement in the Stonewall Riots and is often credited with throwing the first brick at the police in the initial riot, though Johnson herself admits she did not arrive at the first riot until several hours after it had begun(21). She was, however, one of the first to physically resist the police. Upon STAR’s founding, Sylvia Rivera nominated Marsha P. Johnson to be president of the organization, and Johnson declined, stating that Rivera would better fit this role. Johnson died a tragic and mysterious death at the age of forty-six, and her body was discovered floating near the piers of the Hudson River on July 6th, 1992(22). It remains uncertain whether Johnson was murdered or took her own life.
The Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries is cited as the very first organization to center around the needs of transgender women facing housing insecurity(23). Amongst Manhattan-based organizations which centered around transgender liberation in the early 1970s (ex. the Queens Liberation Front, the Transvestite Legal Committee, and the Transsexual Action Organization), STAR had the most enduring legacy. At a time when mainstream LGBTQ+ organizations, not to mention non-LGBTQ+ organizations, were neglecting both the needs of transgender and homeless queer communities(24), the need for an organization such as this one to give support and a platform to these disenfranchised individuals was vital. Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries, in addition to the house which was central to its mission, remains a symbol of inclusion and transgender liberation in the course of LGBTQ+ history.
Cannot Fail.”, Journal of LGBT Youth 7 (April-June 2010):172–75, https://doi.org/10.1080/19361653.2010.480821
Bibliography
Branson, Lindsay. “Gay Liberation in New York City” outhistory.org. OutHistory,
2019. http://outhistory.org/exhibits/show/gay-liberation-in-new-york-cit/star/pg-1.
Cappucci, John. 2010. “The Gay Liberation Youth Movement in New York: An Army of Lovers
Cannot Fail,” Journal of LGBT Youth 7 (2): 172–75. doi:10.1080/19361653.2010.480821.
Feinberg, Leslie. “Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries.” workers.org. Workers World,
September 24, 2006. https://www.workers.org/2006/us/lavender-red-73/.
“Marsha P. Johnson's Place(s) in NYC's LGBT History.” nyclgbtsites.org. NYC LGBT Historic
Sites Project, October 6, 2017. https://www.nyclgbtsites.org/2017/10/06/marsha-p-johnsons-places-in-nycs-lgbt-history/.
Willis, Raquel. “The House That Sylvia Built.” Out 27, no. 10 (June 2019): 20–22.
http://search.ebscohost.com.dbsearch.fredonia.edu:2048/login.aspx?direct=true&db=qth&AN=136474375&site=ehost-live.
Women at the Center. “Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson: Listen to the Newly Unearthed
Interview with Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries.” womenatthecenter.nyhistory.org. The New-York Historical Society, June 26, 2019. http://womenatthecenter.nyhistory.org/gay-power-is-trans-history-street-transvestite-action-revolutionaries/.
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