Any time they needed any help, I was always there for the Young Lords. It was just the respect they gave us as human beings. They gave us a lot of re… - Sylvia Rivera

Part of history forgets, that as the cops are inside the bar, the confrontation started outside by throwing change at the police. We started with the pennies, the nickels, the quarters, and the dimes. "Here's your payoff, you pigs! You f---ing pigs! Get out of our faces. " This was started by the street queens of that era, which I was part of, Marsha P. Johnson, and many others that are not here.

Before gay rights, before the Stonewall I was involved in the Black liberation movement, the peace movement. I felt I had the time and I knew that I had to do something. My revolutionary blood was going back then.

on the fourth anniversary of the Stonewall movement, of the Stonewall riot, the transgender community was silenced because of a radical lesbian named Jean O'Leary, who felt that the transgender community was offensive to women because we liked to wear makeup and we liked to wear miniskirts...Jean O'Leary started the big commotion at this rally [Christopher Street Liberation Day, 1973]. It was the year that Bette Midler performed for us. I was supposed to be a featured speaker that day. But being that the women felt that we were offensive, the drag queens Tiffany and Billy were not allowed to perform. I had to fight my way up on that stage and literally, people that I called my comrades in the movement, literally beat the sh-- out of me. That's where it all began, to really silence us. They beat me, I kicked their a--es. I did get to speak. I got my points across.