Talk:Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries

Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries is currently a World history good article nominee. Nominated by Spookyaki (talk) at 13:48, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

Any editor who has not nominated or contributed significantly to this article may review it according to the good article criteria to decide whether or not to list it as a good article. To start the review process, click start review and save the page. (See here for the good article instructions.)

Short description: American LGBT activist organization

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

LGBTQ+ studies

This article is of interest to WikiProject LGBTQ+ studies, which tries to ensure comprehensive and factual coverage of all LGBTQ-related issues on Wikipedia. For more information, or to get involved, please visit the project page or contribute to the discussion.LGBTQ+ studiesWikipedia:WikiProject LGBTQ+ studiesTemplate:WikiProject LGBTQ+ studiesLGBTQ+ studies

New York City Low‑importance

	New York City portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject New York City, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of New York City-related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.New York CityWikipedia:WikiProject New York CityTemplate:WikiProject New York CityNew York City
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

New York (state) Low‑importance

	New York (state) portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject New York (state), a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the U.S. state of New York on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.New York (state)Wikipedia:WikiProject New York (state)Template:WikiProject New York (state)New York (state)
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

United States Low‑importance

	United States portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject United States, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of topics relating to the United States of America on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the ongoing discussions. Template Usage Articles Requested! Become a Member Project Talk Alerts United StatesWikipedia:WikiProject United StatesTemplate:WikiProject United StatesUnited States
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Organizations Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Organizations, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Organizations on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.OrganizationsWikipedia:WikiProject OrganizationsTemplate:WikiProject Organizationsorganization
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Wiki Loves Pride

This article was created or improved during Wiki Loves Pride, 2025.Wiki Loves PrideWikipedia:Wiki Loves PrideTemplate:Wiki Loves Pride talkWiki Loves Pride

Text has been copied to or from this article; see the list below. The source pages now serve to provide attribution for the content in the destination pages and must not be deleted as long as the copies exist. For attribution and to access older versions of the copied text, please see the history links below.

Copied Weinstein Hall occupation (oldid, history) → Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (diff) on June 5, 2025
Copied Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (oldid, history) → Gay Youth (diff) on June 7, 2025

Manifest

There is no reference to the meantioned manifest of STAR from 1970. Is the manifest lost or do copies exist? If so, please insert a reference. 85.179.111.251 (talk) 20:59, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Move needed?

FYI, I believe this is suppose to be Street Trans Activist Revolutionaries or it was reformed with a name change. -- Banjeboi 00:03, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Conflicting secondary source accounts on origin of STAR

ACT UP to the WTO: Urban Protest and Community Building in the Era of Globalization claims that STAR was originally founded in 1971 as a caucus of the GLF, and claims that this caucus was founded in 1971. This conflicts with The Gay Liberation Youth Movement in New York: An Army of Lovers Cannot Fail, which contains a more detailed history of STAR, and claims that in November 1970 STAR was an already-existing organization which was working with GLF. It is true that GLF and STAR worked very closely, but ACT UP... seems to be the only source claiming that STAR was a GLF caucus. In an interview with Leslie Feinberg, Rivera claims that "STAR came about after a sit-in at Weinstein Hall at New York University in 1970", and doesn't mention STAR being a GLF caucus anywhere, nor have I seen any interview with Rivera that claims STAR was a GLF caucus.

The Wikipedia page on Gay Liberation Front claims that GLF had a drag queen caucus which both Rivera and Johnson were members of, and that this caucus formed STAR, but neither of the sources it provides for that (one of which is ACT Up...) seem to actually provide evidence for that claim, at least as far as I can tell.

For now, in editing the main page, I'm operating with the assumption that STAR was not a caucus of GLF, and that ACT UP... is factually incorrect in this regard, though other sources may correct this. Kropatrick (talk) 02:21, 6 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I've seen other mentions of there being a GLF Drag Queen Caucus, and that some members of that were involved in STAR, but the two groups were not interchangeable. STAR was an independent group founded by Sylvia and Marsha; it was not a caucus of GLF, GAA, or any other group. - CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 21:10, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Johnson's House as STAR HQ

Rivera in an article published in article in Come Out! titled "Transvestites: Your Half Sisters and Half Brothers of the Revolution"; the copy of this article I have access to is printed in the Untorelli Press published collection of STAR materials (https://untorellipress.noblogs.org/post/2013/03/12/street-transvestite-action-revolutionaries-survival-revolt-and-queer-antagonist-struggle/); one of the last lines of this article is "Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries meet Friday at 6:00 p.m. at Marsha Johnson’s, 211 Eldridge Street, New York, N.Y., apt. 3. For information write: S.T.A.R., c/o Marsha Johnson, at the same address."

The Untorelli Press collection claims this article came out in 1971 (p.19), but Cohen (using a smaller block quote from the piece and not citing its source other than "her letter to the gay community" and giving its title and page number in the footnotes without its origin) claims it came out in 1972 (p.153). Given Untorelli also dated "GAY POWER-WHEN DO WE WANT IT? OR DO WE?" wrong (p.18: "Statement on the 1971 NYU Occupation"; emphasis added) I think its safer to say it likely came out in 1972, long after STAR House died in 1971, and therefore can be potentially conceived of as the second known HQ of STAR. Ⓐ Krop (talk) 05:33, 7 February 2019 (UTC); ed. Ⓐ Krop (talk) 19:40, 7 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Also, in the editlog I mentioned that the HQ at Johnson's residence existed in 1971; this was before I realized the Untorelli book was likely incorrect. Ⓐ Krop (talk) 05:34, 7 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Leaving the mention of it within the article out nonetheless, given we don't really know anything about it, but I'm leaving it in the sidebox for the moment Ⓐ Krop (talk) 06:02, 7 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Additionally, during Rivera's 1973 Christopher St. Liberation Day Parade speech she mentions "come and see the people at STAR House on 12th Street, on 640 East 12th Street between B and C, apartment 14", which is different from both Johnson's house and the original STAR House. I've yet to see anyone reference this second STAR House. Their HQ/location situation hasn't been documented in any detail in secondary sources by what I can tell. Removing the reference to Johnson's house as HQ for the moment in light of this for consistency. Ⓐ Krop (talk) 06:28, 7 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Doesn't seen like you're active on here anymore, but in case you're curious, I believe this is probably resolved by Tourmaline's new biography of Johnson, which explains that STAR offices shifted around after the loss of STAR House, including to several hotel rooms on 12th Street. I would assume that the address given in the 1973 speech is one of those. Spookyaki (talk) 13:54, 5 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Planned updates

Hello! Just a heads up that I am planning on overhauling and improving this article as part of the ongoing 2025 Wiki Loves Pride campaign. My primary goals are to improve sourcing and to expand the article in preparation for a GA review. Here are a few specific notes on the changes I intend to make:

I will be trimming some content from the "Later activism by founders" section, as I think this is more relevant to Rivera and Johnson's respective pages. However, the overall length of the article should be increasing from 1,397 words to roughly 3,000+ words.
Unless I can find anything better, I will be employing a few questionable sources per WP:RSP, but will attribute them. The New York Post is perhaps the most questionable, but after searching for probably a little over an hour, I was unable to locate any other sources that discussed the outcome of the Milan trial, and that seemed like a relevant detail to add.
I have never done this before, but due to the controversy regarding Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries: Survival, Revolt, and Queer Antagonist Struggle by Untorelli Press (see Street Evangelists and Transgender Saints: Sylvia Rivera, Marsha P. Johnson, and the Religions of the Afro-Americas by Ahmad Greene-Hayes, p. 46 for details), I will be including a note explaining that many of the primary source documents in the book were allegedly discovered by Tourmaline. This seems like the best solution given the way that footnotes work on Wikipedia, but if there is an issue with the notes or some better way to get the information across, let me know.
I will be using some information from the new biography on Johnson written by Tourmaline. However, unfortunately, I am using an ebook copy that does not have pagination, so I will just be citing by section title. If anyone wants to get more precise with the page numbers, feel free to do so.

I will be working in my sandbox, so feel free to check my progress there and message me if you feel there are issues with the sandbox content or if you have ideas for sources. There will probably be a very big edit coming tomorrow or in the next couple days. If there are issues with that edit once it goes through, let me know and we can discuss it here. Thank you! Spookyaki (talk) 05:06, 5 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]