Marsha P. Johnson was deeply despised, silenced, and erased by a "gay movement" that saw her as extreme and damaging to their quest for mainstream acceptance. Those same organizations (and some of those same people) will now celebrate her birthday with a fundraising email.

Many of those emails will be written by white cis people who work with other white cis people to celebrate markers of "progress" that may never reach Black trans women like Marsha--Black trans women like those I've seen forced out of their jobs at those same nonprofits.

Marsha is not your talking point. Proving you learned her name is not the same as proving you learned the lessons of her life. And the same barriers that kept her on the outside of a surging queer movement are locking out organizers carrying on her legacy today.

Progress that only helps some trans people while abandoning others is hardly progress at all. Pretending so perpetuates an existential weakness that plagues queer organizations. Today, celebrate a hero of the past by supporting the heroes of today. https://secure.actblue.com/donate/blacktrans-queer?tandembox=show