Marsha P. Johnson: who she was, and what the P stood for

Marsha P. Johnson is one of the most recognised figures in LGBTQ+ history, and one of the most mythologised. The real person was better than the myth: funny, generous, often broke, and consistently present for people who had nobody else.

Who was Marsha P. Johnson?

She was born in 1945 in New Jersey and moved to New York as a young adult, where she lived and performed for the rest of her life, much of it in Greenwich Village. She was a drag performer, a model for artists and a well-known presence on Christopher Street.

The language she used for herself was the language of her time and place, including drag queen and gay. Many people today remember her as a trans woman, and historians note that she lived before the modern vocabulary existed. Both things can be said with respect.

What the P stood for

When people asked what the P in her name stood for, she answered 'pay it no mind', including, famously, when the question was about her gender. The phrase has become one of the things she is best remembered for.

Stonewall and STAR

Johnson is closely associated with the Stonewall uprising of June 1969. Accounts differ on exactly when she arrived and what she did, and she herself described arriving after it had begun. What is not in doubt is that she was part of the movement that grew out of it.

In 1970 she co-founded STAR, Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries, with Sylvia Rivera, to support homeless young drag queens and trans people. Later she was active in AIDS activism in New York.

Her death

In July 1992 her body was found in the Hudson River. Police initially ruled her death a suicide, which friends disputed. The classification was later changed, and the case was reopened in 2012. The circumstances of her death have never been fully established.

Why she is remembered

Partly for Stonewall, but mostly for how she treated people. The stories told about her are rarely about speeches. They are about shared food, a place to sleep, and turning up. That is a kind of legacy any community can practise.