♡ ༄

her name was Marsha P Johnson, and we have her to thank for so much.

remember, the first Pride was a riot, and she was one of the brave souls who endured it to help carve the path which so many of us walk today. she helped found several activist groups regarding LGBT safety and wellbeing. and she was absolutely radiant, too.

So what is their solution? Imprisonment.

Have yall seen the conditions of ICE concentration camps? They're barely being fed edible food, it's horrible overcrowded, and they literally die of medical neglect. And ICE prisoners are going on LABOR STRIKE because they have are being held AS SLAVES.

Americans need to stop accepting the horrific conditions of US prisons in general where inmates are too often killed, raped, and tortured, and yes also used as slave laborers for profit. We need to liberate and abolish this prison system.

No one should be in prison FOR BEING HOMELESS or an addict. THEY SHOILD SIMPLY BE HOUSED. Studies of housing assistance programs for homeless people prove they work!

And that is what Marsha did, with her best friend Sylvia Rivera who ought to be included more frankly; those women and other older queens performed extra sex work to provide not just for themselves but for teen girls so those girls didnt have to.

They took responsibility for their community, they risked their own safety, they didnt limit their activism and survival to being perfectly lawful, and they survived as best and as long as they could and saved lives.

We need to be a fraction as brave and do a fraction of the work at the very least.

btw, how were these women treated at later "respectable" Pride events? Not well. Here is Sylvia shouting down haters and winning over the crowd.