Sylvia Rivera Stonewall Riot

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“I’m not missing a minute of this, it’s the revolution.”

Link: These words were spoken at the Stonewall Riots in 1969 by a 17 girl named Sylvia Rivera. This riot would be the spark that started the LGBT rights movement in the United States, and this girl would be one of the people that kept the fire going.

Thesis: During this speech, I will discuss Sylvia Rivera’s legacy as a gay and transgender activist and what her impact on the world has been.

Topic Overview: I will go over her part in the Stonewall Riots, the organization she started after the riots, and the problems she faced along the way.

Body Paragraph 1: Stonewall Riots
Stonewall Riots: June 28, 1969 is said to be the turning point in history for the LGBT community because …show more content…

It was supposed to be a fun night for her, but then all of the sudden, the lights came on, the police walked into the bar, lined people up, and asked everyone to show identification. The reason the police wanted identification was the New York law that stated that a person had to wear at least three items of clothing that were “appropriate” to the gender they were born as. Sylvia Rivera, who identified as a drag queen at the time, could be arrested at anytime due to dressing feminine instead of masculine. During these raids, the people that were arrested were employees of the bar, people without identification, and people dressed as a different gender. According to Sylvia, the riots were started by the “street queens” or homeless LGBT people, who were in the area. They witnessed a masculine woman resisting arrest and responded by throwing pocket change at the police. It only escalated from there. Eventually people were throwing bottles and molotov cocktails. Sylvia is credited with throwing the first bottle and the first molotov cocktail, although she said she threw the second cocktail, not the first. She once said, during an interview about the riots, “I was a radical, a revolutionist. I am still a revolutionist. … I’m glad I was in the Stonewall Riot. I remember when someone threw a Molotov cocktail, I thought, ‘My god, the revolution is here. The revolution is finally here!’ I always believed that we would have a fightback. I just knew that we would fight back. I just didn’t know it would be that night. I am proud of myself as being there that night. If I had lost that moment, I would have been kinda hurt because that’s when I saw the world change for me and my

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