Disability and LGBTQ+ History

While Jordan and many others like her were quiet and subtle in their activism and representation of disabled and queer people, others were really, really not. Marsha P Johnson has become a widely celebrated figure online in the last few years, for very good reasons, but many of the things you've heard about her may not be exactly right. She identified not as transgender but intemittently, as either a gay man, a transvestite or a drag queen. It is worth noting though that the term transgender wasn't in wide use at this point, and so she might have been merely unfamiliar with the term. She definitely had a flexible view of her gender, telling anyone who asked whether she was a man or a woman that the P in her name stood for "pay it no mind". While many have credited her with throwing the first brick at the Stonewall Riots, she denies that she was even there at the beginning. She was however a major figure in the uprisings, as one of the first drag queens to start going to the Stonewall Inn once they stopped restricting their clientele to only gay men. Although she denied being there right at the start, she sure as hell was there later on. Many sources agree that on the second night, she shimmied up a lamppost and dropped a brick onto the windshield of a police car, smashing it into pieces. The riots were the culmination of growing tension between the LGBTQ+ community and the police, after a rapidly increasing numbers of violent raids of gay bars, supposedly to combat the mafia. This time though, the community had decided that enough was enough. The Stonewall Riots resulted in protests and marches for weeks afterwards, demanding the freedom for queer people to live openly and without fear. One year later, in commemoration of the riots, the first gay pride marches were held in cities across the USA. The influence of members of the queer disabled community simply being visible can't be underestimated though, particularly given the historical tradition where many people had to distance themselves from these identities. An exception to this though was Bobbie Lea Bennet. For many transgender people in the US, having gender affirming surgery meant either funding expensive treatment and rehabilitation themselves out of their own pockets. Either that, or using a near impossible argument to prove that their gender identity was a disability, to get the government to agree to cover the cost with social security benefits. However for transgender people who were already disabled and already had their costs covered by social security, that step could theoretically be skipped. Or at least that was what Bobbie had originally been told. However, after having jumped through all the hoops required of her by the medical team and the government, she was informed that Medicare had suddenly changed their mind about paying the cost, and decided they didn't fancy funding the whole thing anymore. So she did what any stubborn person would do, drove from California to Washington DC and refused to leave the office until the director had agreed to meet with her. Soon after Bobbie's meeting with the director of Medicare, (which I'm sure was very polite and didn't involve her verbally ripping this man a new orifice), she received a mysterious cheque in the post that just so happened to cover the entire cost of the surgery that they had previously refused to cover. And just a few months later, the director announced a new policy (which was definitely entirely his own idea) that meant that Medicare coverage would now be extended to include gender affirming surgery. This intersection of queer history and disability history hasn't just always existed, but has always been instrumental in the progression of our rights. By not seeking out these stories, and ignoring how intersectional communities have contributed, we risk missing out on all the lessons that those before us have taught.