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22:46Flipping through the pages of one of the first nationally distributed gay magazines, Rivera realized that something really had changed. That same day, she ran into her friend Marsha P. Johnson, a friend and fellow sex worker who told Rivera that she should get involved with the Gay Activists' Alliance. But at her first GAA meeting, Rivera, a trans-feminine person of Puerto Rican descent, was greeted with stares and odd looks by the young, mostly white, mostly middle-class members. Despite the GAA's message of inclusiveness, one of the group's founders would later say, the general membership is frightened of Sylvia and thinks she's a troublemaker.

23:22They're frightened by street people. But despite feeling rejected, Rivera stuck it out. She kept returning to meetings, forcing GAA members to engage with her, whether they liked it or not. She spoke passionately to her fellow sex workers, too, urging them to join the movement as well. And she jumped into political actions with abandon. While collecting signatures in Times Square for a gay rights petition, Rivera was arrested by New York tactical police who were sweeping up anti-war protesters just one block away. Rivera was charged with disorderly conduct, unlawful assembly, and in her recollection, creating a riot.

23:57She managed to post a$50 bail out of her own pocket, but she still had to fight her charges through the court system. Members of the GAA and GLF rallied to Rivera's defense, helping her with court costs and legal representation. The charges would eventually be dropped. Heartened by this unexpected show of support, Rivera would continue to stay involved.

24:22Meanwhile, the GAA pushed for a public stand of support from New York's mayor, John Lindsay. They wanted the mayor to embrace the cause of LGBTQ equal rights and to publicly admit discriminatory practices by the city. But Lindsay, who'd only just been newly re-elected with support from gay voters, was suddenly nowhere to be found. Repeated attempts to contact the mayor produced little more than vague replies from his staff along the lines of, We'll get back to you. And a coordinated demonstration at City Hall in March 1970 was met with barricades and police on horseback. It became clear to activists that even though Lindsay was happy to receive the LGBTQ vote, he had no interest in actively engaging with those same voters.

25:04So to be effective, GAA demonstrators had to be more than just signs and marches. For them, it was time to try a different tactic. GAA founder Arthur Evans explained his new direction, saying, There was no division for us between the political and the personal. So we decided that the people on the other side of the power structure were going to have the same thing happen to them. In effect, we would disrupt Mayor Lindsay's personal life. Every time he appeared in public, we would make life as uncomfortable for him as we could and remind him of the reason why. This form of active political disruption would become known as a zap.

25:40The first zap happened April 13, 1970, as Mayor Lindsay was giving a commemoration speech on the vast front steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As the mayor spoke, no one in the crowd noticed Marty Robinson, dressed in a baseball jacket, slowly making his way up the stairs towards the microphone. When he got close enough, Robinson interrupted the mayor's speech, asking when he would finally speak out on gay rights. Robinson was, of course, rushed away by Lindsay's bodyguards, but inside the museum, the zap would continue. GAA members had scattered themselves throughout the crowd. As Mayor Lindsay toured the museum, they randomly confronted him with flyers asking what he'd done to improve the rights of gay people.

26:22And then, in the receiving line at the end of the tour, Lindsay was challenged by a GAA member who shook his hand and wouldn't let go. You have our leaflet. Now, when in the hell are you going to speak to homosexuals? During every confrontation, Lindsay stayed silent and waited for his security guards to haul the person off. But the GAA had made their point. They brought their politics into Lindsay's everyday life. Mayor Lindsay didn't publicly comment on the group's issues or their tactics. But if the mayor thought he was off the hook after this one event, he was wrong.

26:57Imagine it's spring 1970. You're an aide to New York Mayor John Lindsay, and lately you've been tasked with helping run his weekly television talk show at WNEW Studios. It was a new idea to have a city's mayor appear on TV in a question-and-answer format with a host, but so far It's been a good one. The mayor is sharp and funny, and he has a face for television. The show's been popular, and it's been running smoothly for three years. You head into the studio to see if they need any help checking in the last of the audience members. But by the time you get there, the line in the hallway has dwindled to just one person.

27:31You stand between him and the door. Then you notice something. Excuse me, I've seen you somewhere before. The man is wearing jeans and a plaid shirt. He looks like a student, but too old to be in college. Yes, you have. My name's Arthur, and I'm with the Gay Activist Alliance. Ah, you were at the Met. At Mayor Lindsey's speech, you were in the handshake line. That's right. We were trying to have a word with the mayor. Is your group here as well? But Arthur answers your question with a question. Why haven't we heard from you? From Mayor Lindsey's office. We're his constituents, and we could use the mayor's help with a pretty big problem we're facing.

28:07Behind you, a studio tech gives warning that the show's live in two minutes. You begin to panic. What should you do? Throw him out? But for what? He's done nothing but be polite and ask questions. No, you'll just be accused of discrimination. As all these thoughts rush through your head, the man breezes right past you. Excuse me, I'm going to grab my seat. I can't wait to hear what Mayor Lindsay has to say today. You rush off to warn the mayor, and security too. If the studio audience is full of gay rights activists, who knows what kind of stunt they're going to try pole. He tried to warn the mayor he couldn't ignore this group forever, but he didn't listen.

28:43And now he's going to have to pay the price in public.

28:50The Gay Activists Alliance had written in advance for tickets to Mayor Lindsay's TV show taping. Around 40 GAA members were scattered throughout the audience. As the cameras rolled, Lindsay looked visibly nervous. Five minutes later, in the middle of a discussion on ecology, Arthur Evans burst from his seat shouting, Homosexuals want an end to job discrimination. Another GAA member in the audience shouted, Yes, let that man speak. Before the security guards could intervene, GAA members in seats all across the studio were stomping their feet, chanting, Answer the question. Evans was hustled out of the studio, but as taping resumed, GAA members throughout the crowd kept interrupting.

29:30When Lindsay's guest spoke about what to do with abandoned cars in the city, one of the GAA members shouted out, What about abandoned homosexuals? When Lindsay replied to a question about street congestion, saying, If you're stuck in a traffic jam, it's illegal to blow your horn, another voice from the audience called out, It's illegal in New York to blow anything. The zap at WNEW resulted in a hastily scheduled meeting at the mayor's office. And although the press arrived to cover it, it became clear that Mayor Lindsay was still not going to make any public statements in support of LGBTQ rights.

30:04But thanks to ZAP's and other active confrontations, public exposure to LGBTQ issues was at an all-time high by the spring of 1970. When a member of the New York City Marriage Bureau made public statements against homosexuality, his office was occupied by the GAA. Activists took over the phones, telling all callers that the office was now only issuing same-sex marriage license. Some GAA activists applied the ZAP tactic to other feminist causes. Another occupation, this time at the Ladies' Home Journal, involved a group of over 100 women who took over the magazine's offices with the goal of liberating the so-called women's magazine from its male editor-in-chief.

30:43The protesters pointed out that the few women who did work for the journal were underpaid and that there were no black women working there at all. Carla Jay, a 23-year-old lesbian activist, joined with members of the National Organization for Women, or NOW, for the occupation. But her own feelings about combining lesbian activism with straight feminist activism were mixed. After the demonstration, she wrote, What good had we actually done? Aside from the publicity, which might awaken middle America to the magazine's hypocrisy and lies, we had succeeded only in getting vassar girls higher-paying jobs in publishing.

31:16So Jay would help go on to stage a far more effective zap against the National Organization for Women after its founder made anti-gay statements. Betty Friedan, now's leader and herself a feminist activist, had dismissively referred to lesbians as a lavender menace. Friedan prevented lesbian groups like the Daughters of Bilitis from joining now, worried that lesbians would give the broader public the wrong idea of what feminism was. But Friedan was about to find out very clearly what a zap was. It came as much of a surprise to Friedan as anyone when on the first evening of the organization's second annual conference, all the lights in the auditorium mysteriously went dark.

31:54The assembled audience of 300 people heard shouts and hoots and the sound of people running down the aisles. When the lights came back on, the aisles were lined with women wearing t-shirts that read, Lavender Menace, shouting, We're tired of being in the closet because of the women's movement. Who wants to join us? Many in the audience that night did. The Lavender Menace would go on to become the first post-Stonewall group to center lesbian issues. But as ZAPs were helping raise the profile of gay and lesbian causes, ideological and personal rifts were forming among the activists. Men were shouting down women at GLF meetings.

32:31And despite a public message of inclusiveness, these new so-called radical groups were still addressing predominantly white, middle-class concerns. They were still failing to address the needs of transgender people, activists who had been on the front lines at Stonewall. It was clear that following Stonewall, everything and nothing had changed. As the LGBTQ rights movement faced a new decade, trans activists would push the movement to live up to its radical rhetoric.

33:03By the early 2000s, college admissions in America were more competitive than ever. For students and their parents, it was an ordeal to be endured. But for college counselor Rick Singer, it was a chance to get rich. Exploiting the desperation of his clients, he invented what he called the side door, a new way into elite schools for those wealthy enough to pay the entry fee. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, host of the podcast American Scandal. We bring to life some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history, presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, a college counselor mounts an audacious scheme to get his wealthy clients into the universities of their choice.

33:43He thinks he's found a way to rig the system until an unrelated FBI investigation inadvertently exposes the largest college admissions fraud in American history. Follow American Scandal wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can binge all episodes of American Scandal early and ad-free right now. Join Audible and the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts. Imagine you're reading Pride and Prejudice, except you're not reading it. Harris Dickinson and Marissa Abella are reading it to you on Audible. Her barbs sting you. His coldness sends a shiver up your spine. Your heart aches.

34:18Your ears burn. You yearn for Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy to profess their undying love for one another. You can't bear it any longer. Well, maybe a chapter longer. Performance is so good, you'll give love a second chance. Audible. Stories that speak to you.

34:40By June 1970, Craig Rodwell was putting the finishing touches on a demonstration he felt could bring the different factions of the LGBTQ rights movement together. It was a simple idea, a parade, to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising. Rodwell was calling it the Liberation Day March. But he still had to go through the proper channels if the march was going to happen at all. The Gay Liberation Front and the Gay Activists' Alliance both held fundraisers. Rodwell himself brought in additional money by asking customers at his bookstore for donations. It took some convincing, but eventually even Mattachine and the daughter's abilities signed on.

35:17Little by little, Rodwell and the organizers raised the thousand dollars that it took to throw a parade in New York. But on the eve of the march, Rodwell's simple idea kept him up all night with worry. Public demonstrations across the country were drawing a violent response from the government and the police. Just the month before, on May 4th, four students had been shot to death by the National Guard at Kent State University. Less than a week later, a group of young anti-war demonstrators on Wall Street had been attacked by roughly 200 unionized construction workers. Seventy people were injured as construction workers, many of them carrying American flags and pro-war placards fought students in the street.

35:56It was called the Hard Hat Riot, and it was this specter of violent retribution that haunted Craig Rodwell, along with many other activists. Even though the Liberation Day march wasn't explicitly about the war in Vietnam, it was clear that a demonstration on this scale of any kind could very well end in violence. But the Liberation Day march was a success. Thousands of LGBTQ people and their allies marched 51 city blocks from Greenwich Village to Sheet Meadow in Central Park. More importantly, no one attacked them. Although many curiosity seekers turned out to watch from the sidewalks, the marchers faced little open animosity.

36:35GAA activist and co-founder Marty Robinson was quoted in the New York Times saying, We've never had a demonstration like this. It serves notice to every politician in the nation that we're not going to hide anymore. We won't be harassed and degraded anymore. Michael Brown from the GLF agreed, saying, This march is an affirmation and declaration of our new pride. When Craig Rodwell arrived in Central Park at the end of the march, he had a broad smile on his face, surrounded by thousands of fellow friends and compatriots. They were all there around him. And at least for the moment, they were all together.

37:12But for Silvia Rivera, the Liberation Day march only emphasized her mixed feelings about political involvement. On the one hand, it was good that the march had happened. But on the other, she still felt excluded from goals the march had been trying to achieve. The leaders and faces in the march were mostly white. They were mostly concerned with engaging with white politicians and the middle-class status quo. None of these people considered the issues facing people who lived on the streets, or people of color, or people of any sort who didn't fit into conventional paradigms. Rivera's world looked nothing like the meeting she returned to again and again with the GAA and the GLF.

37:50Some lesbians even attacked her identity directly, arguing that trans women were not really women, and so they shouldn't be allowed to join in lesbian organizing. In the face of this transphobia, however, Rivera would always reply forcefully. She felt most comfortable in women's clothing, in women's makeup. Labels were not her concern. What mattered to her was fighting for liberation. So despite the antagonism she faced, Sylvia continued to stay active. In the fall of 1970, she and Marsha P. Johnson took part in a political act that would have far-reaching implications. When New York University suddenly put an end to hosting gay social functions, a call went out to occupy Weinstein Hall, a building near Washington Square Park.

38:32The university's administration had closed its facilities to gay students until a panel of ministers and psychologists determined whether homosexuality was morally acceptable. In response, for five days, students and activists peacefully occupied the building, holding teach-ins for the public about gay rights. Rivera, Johnson, and other trans activists took part in this occupation, and over the five days, some of the tension dissipated as Rivera and Johnson, bedding down in the same space as cis-lesbian activists, engaged in frank and personal dialogue. One of the occupiers described it later, saying, We started mixing together and really started getting along very well.

39:11All kinds of us were together. Trans people, middle class people, people used to passing for straight, blacks, whites, Latinos, street people, students. A lot of barriers and fears were broken down. But on the fifth day, New York City police arrived to forcibly evict the students and activists. Rivera resisted and had to be carried out. But she had come away from the occupation with a new idea. She would start an organization of her own.

39:40By the fall of 1970, Sylvia Rivera had formed a community organization that could finally address the issues facing young, often homeless, sex workers. In other words, people like her. She called it STAR, which stood for Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries. Its goal was first to provide housing for homeless LGBTQ people. Rivera approached Marsha P. Johnson and asked her if she'd like to be president of this new group, but Johnson declined, telling Rivera that she should have the job, saying, You stay on one thought when you speak. I go off in all directions. You'll be the president. I'll be vice president.

40:14The two began the organization out of the back of an abandoned trailer truck. Gathering around two dozen sex workers and friends from the street, Rivera and Johnson laid out some ground rules. Star members could sleep in the trailer whenever they wanted. Rivera later recalled, Marsha and I would go out and hustle. We'd pick up breakfast and whatnot for the kids. We would tell them, if you don't want to go out there and sell your body, don't do it. But if you want to, whatever you get, you got to remember to push back into helping all of us. Soon, enough money was raised that Rivera was able to move Star into a four-bedroom apartment in the East Village.

40:47She called the apartment Star House. With Rivera acting as a kind of den mother, Star House took in whoever needed a place to stay, teaching them how to cook and holding dances to raise money. Star proved to be ahead of its time. Without open support from any traditional LGBTQ groups, Rivera, Johnson, and other volunteers created a much-needed shelter for underage and adult trans people. Star House offered a simple respite from the dangers of homelessness, sex work, and societal rejection. Rivera described the apartment. It was only four rooms, and the landlord had turned the electricity off, so we lived there by candlelight, a floating bunch of 15 to 25 queens, cramped in those rooms with all our wardrobe, but it worked.

41:28We'd cook up these big spaghetti dinners, and sometimes we'd have sausage for breakfast if we were feeling rich. The tenants came and went. Rivera explained, some of them went to the streets. We lost them, but we tried to do the best we could for them. Star engaged in active campaigns as well, teaming up with members of the GAA, GLF, and Latino civil rights group The Young Lords. Star members also marched at the New York State House in Albany and campaigned to raise awareness of abuses in the state's prison and judicial system, a cause dear to Star activists. Without ability to post bail or acquire legal counsel, those with extensive records of minor infractions like Star members often remained in prison for years awaiting adjudication.

42:11Marsha P. Johnson herself had pled guilty to charges of prostitution. In her mind, a 30-day sentence and a guilty charge on her record was still better than being imprisoned indefinitely while waiting to plead not guilty. But the immense challenges facing Rivera, Johnson, and the members of Star House would prove to be too great. Fundraising efforts had borne little fruit, and in the summer of 1971, they faced eviction by their landlord after falling three months behind in rent. Rivera turned to the members of the GAA for help.

42:45Imagine it's July 1971. You're one of the few remaining members of Star House. Since the eviction notice was posted, nearly everyone living in the house is scattered. But this morning, Sylvia sent you to the GAA offices on a mission. But when you arrive, after rushing up the stairs and into the GAA's main hallway, you're surprised to find no one around. Hello? Anyone here? Your voice just echoes in the hallway. Usually the offices are buzzing with activity, but today they've gone quiet. Anyone here? Then one of the GAA members appears in a doorway. Oh, hi. It's nice to see you. Well, I gotta tell you, it's not so nice to be me today.

43:24I want to tell you what. I came by to check on the donation box Sylvia left here a few days ago. Sure, sure. Yeah. We left the box on the front table over there, just like she asked. Oh, good. Okay. I've been running all over the city trying to put some money together. Every little bit helps, you know. They're going to throw us out of Star House if we don't pay them by tomorrow. Yes, I'm sorry to hear that. You've been doing such great work over there. But the GAA member's face is pinched. There's a halting, nervous tone in his voice. Still, ever hopeful, you walk over to the donation box. Give it a little shake.

43:59Oh, dear. Doesn't feel like there's much here. No, I'm sorry. I know there was a big meeting here last night. I couldn't make it myself, but I know you had a meeting. I was hoping that maybe a few of your people could have helped us out a little bit. Just then, another GAA member emerges, cautiously into the hallway. You turn to her with a donation box in your hand. Do you want to give some money to help Star House? They're going to put us out in the street. Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries. We need$900, honey. It can start with you. Make a revolutionary donation. But she doesn't respond.

44:33You realize that now several GAA members have all silently come out of their offices. They're looking at you, staring at you. Their faces are blank, like they see you, but they don't hear you. Perhaps they like it better if you just went away. You start to feel frantic. How about you, sir? Or you, miss? Hey, I've got an idea. We could work out a loan situation, right? Think about it. A Gay Activist Alliance loan. Yeah. We discussed that with Sylvia the other day. We all talked about it. we'd love to help you out with the money, but the GAA is not in the business of giving loans. But you could start getting in the business, like right now, and I think it's a fine idea.

45:13I do. The banks do it all the time. But we're not a bank, and it's a dangerous precedent. What if we give money to Star House, but we didn't give money to someone else? Then we'd be playing favors. But that's all I'm asking for, a favor. Aren't you all supposed to be queer activists? It's just not possible. Maybe leave the donation box out for a few more weeks. We don't have a few more weeks. I'm going to take this donation box and I'm going to hit the streets. I'd have better luck at the waterfront than here. So thanks for your time and your generous help. You used to cry about things like this, but that was a long time ago.

45:49Now you've toughened up. You've had to be tough. Survival is different from marches and demonstrations and meetings. Survival is about having food to eat and a place to sleep. You emerge onto the streets of New York. It's a beautiful day, but it could all change in a second. It could all get worse out on the street, but you're going to keep pushing. If those people won't listen, you'll just have to find someone who will.

46:17Despite the efforts of the Star House members, they were unable to collect the rent, and the building's landlord evicted them. But Sylvia Rivera didn't let the loss of Star House dissuade her. There still needed to be an open conversation about the needs of disadvantaged people, and she was one of the few who clung to the cause. By June of 1973, the Gay Activists Alliance and other gay rights groups had distanced themselves politically from the trans members of their community. But at the third annual Christopher Street Liberation Day March, Rivera decided she was tired of being ignored. Insisting on being heard amidst the raft of mainstream gay speakers that day, Rivera rushed the stage and took hold of the microphone.

46:57She was greeted with a chorus of boos and jeers from the gay activist audience. But she responded forcefully, saying, Y 'all better quiet down. I've been trying to get up here all day for your gay brothers and your gay sisters in jail. They write me every week, asking for your help, and you don't do a thing for them. The audience did quiet down as Rivera continued, speaking about how she had been raped in jail, how she had been beaten, lost her job and her apartment, and how all that time she had been fighting for gay liberation. But where, she asked, had the gay rights movement been for her, and for her trans brothers and sisters who were not part of, as Rivera put it, a white middle-class club.

47:35This indictment was damning, and her words echoed through the crowd. She continued,

47:47Rivera ended with a call for revolution and gay power as the crowd cheered her on. And her call for true solidarity would reverberate in the years that followed.

48:00In the coming decades, LGBTQ activists would continue the struggle to advance civil rights in their communities and across the nation. Political engagement would not always be easy. And even today, the movement struggles to ensure that LGBTQ people of all races, gender identities, and class backgrounds benefit from the civil rights gains that have been made. LGBTQ people continue to face unequal access to housing, employment, and health care. Transgender people, in particular, report mistreatment at the hands of police. Their fight for equality continues. Up until the end of her life in 2002, Sylvia Rivera remained the steadfast advocate for LGBTQ youth.

48:39Marsha P. Johnson continued her activist work, helping to fight the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. But in 1992, her body was found floating in the Hudson River. Craig Rodwell, too, stayed active in LGBTQ organizing. He continued to run the Oscar Wilde bookstore on Christopher Street until his death in 1993. And although the Manichin Society effectively came to an end after the Stonewall raids, Dick Leisch would remain a voice in the movement until his death in 2018. As for the Stonewall Inn itself, the bar lasted only three months after the police raid in 1969. After a successful boycott by the LGBTQ community, the bar's mafia owners were forced to give up the lease.

49:19Over the next decades, the bar changed hands several times. Today, the Stonewall endures as a bar and restaurant, but also a living monument for the struggle for equal rights. A struggle that continues to this day. Next on American History Tellers, for our 100th season, we are telling the story of Ellis Island, the immigration station in New York Harbor that was the gateway to the United States for millions of new arrivals. Opened in 1892, Ellis Island operated during an unprecedented surge of immigrants, and it became a flashpoint in a contentious debate over who deserves a chance at the American dream.

50:14Audible subscribers can binge new seasons of American History Tellers early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts. And to find out more about me, including my other podcasts, my live show, the history tours I'm arranging, and all sorts of other things, go to HistoryIsHuman.com. That's HistoryIsHuman.com. From Audible Originals, this is Episode 4 of Stonewall for American History Tellers. I also have two other podcasts you might like, American Scandal and American Election's Wicked Game. For more information on Stonewall and the gay rights movement, we recommend The Stonewall Reader, edited by Jason Bauman, and the Gay Liberation Youth Movement in New York, An Army of Lovers Cannot Fail, by Stephen L.

51:01Cohen. American History Tellers is hosted, edited, and produced by me, Lindsey Graham, for Airship. Audio editing by Molly Bach. Sound design by Derek Behrens. This episode is written by George Ducker, edited by Dorian Marina. Special thanks to Sylvian Consulting for serving as an advisor on this series. Our executive producers are Jenny Lauer Beckman and Marshall Louis, created by Hernan Lopez for Wondery. Executive producer for Audible, Jenny Lauer Beckman. Head of creative development at Audible, Kate Navin. Head of Audible Originals North America, Marshall Louis. Chief content officer, Rachel Giazza.

51:34Copyright 2026 by Audible Originals, LLC. Sound recording copyright 2026 by Audible Originals, LLC.

52:00James Arthur Ray was a charismatic self-help guru who promised his followers a path to wealth and enlightenment by becoming the best versions of themselves. But not all who followed him finished their journey. After Ray appeared on Oprah, thousands flocked to his events. But what many people didn't know about were his more extreme methods. Methods that push his followers to their limits, giving some the transformative experience they envisioned and killing others. For the best bingeable series like the one I just told you about, listen to the Audible True Crime Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

52:34Audible subscribers can get all episodes early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts.