Sylvia Ray Rivera (born in New York, New York) was a transgender activist and founding member of both the Gay Liberation Front and the Gay Activists Alliance. With her close friend Marsha P. Johnson, Rivera co-founded the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), a group dedicated to helping homeless young drag queens and transgender women of color in New York.
Rivera was of Puerto Rican and Venezuelan descent and was abandoned by her father and became an orphan at three years old when her mother committed suicide. Rivera was then raised by her grandmother, who disapproved of Rivera’s effeminate behavior and wearing makeup in the 4th grade. Rivera began living on the streets at the age of eleven working as a prostitute. She was taken in by the local community of drag queens, who gave her the name, “Sylvia.”
Rivera is rumored to have thrown one of the first bottles at police during the Stonewall Riots. Rivera battled substance abuse and lived on the streets most of her life. She fought for herself but most importantly for the rights of people of color, low-income queers, and transgender people.