Sylvia Rivera, born on July 2 in 1951, was a Latina American queer rights activist, member of the Gay Liberation Front, and community worker from the state of New York.
Rivera, who identified as a "half-sister", participated in demonstrations with the Gay Liberation Front. With her close friend Marsha P. Johnson, Rivera co-founded the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), a socialist group dedicated to helping homeless young drag queens, gay youth, and trans women.
At different times in her life, Rivera battled substance abuse and lived on the streets, largely in the gay homeless community at the Christopher Street docks. Her experiences made her more focused on advocacy for those who, in her view, mainstream society and the assimilationist factions of the LGBT community were leaving behind.
Rivera died during the dawn hours of February 19th, 2002, at St. Vincent's Hospital, of complications from liver cancer. Activist Riki Wilchins said this of her: "In many ways, Sylvia was the Rosa Parks of the modern transgender movement, a term that was not even coined until two decades after Stonewall".
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Remember the radicalism of Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P Johnson
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“Our armies are rising:” Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson
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I feel so fucked. I'm doing laundry right now, mainly just drying clothes, while having something cooking in the oven. and for a brief moment I thought I smelt smoke and panicked, and immediately went to go check on everything and everything fine. and this is not the first time where I suddenly got extremely worried of there being a fire, because it felt like I smelt smoke or something. this is exhausting. at least everything fine and there is no fire or anything. getting worried over nothing again.
I used to get like this when my OCD was peak bad. Except for me it was always "is the door locked" and "is the stove on." And I'd have to check. Even if I had just checked, double check triple check. 3 am, woke up to pee? You bet I had to check. I drove away to visit family, literally 1.5 hours away? Yes, I would have to drive home part way and check.
If that sounds familiar, you might have OCD brewing. It's okay, it's treatable, I'm way better - I even stopped meds after lots of therapy. I still get anxious about it but I learned how to deal. Meds were an absolute godsend, I was happy to take em, I just felt ready to come off after about 18 months and so far haven't needed them again.