Trans Icon Marsha P. Johnson To Receive Park Named In Her Honor

Marsha P. Johnson and Governor Andrew Cuomo

The news follows an anouncement last year that a monument would be built in her honor

Mikelle Street

Mikelle is the former editorial director of digital for PrideMedia, guiding digital editorial and social across Out, The Advocate, Pride.com, Out Traveler, and Plus. After starting as a freelancer for Out in 2013, he joined the staff as Senior Editor working across print and digital in 2018. In early 2021 he became Out's digital director, marking a pivot to content that centered queer and trans stories and figures, exclusively. In September 2021, he was promoted to editorial director of PrideMedia. He has written cover stories on Ricky Martin, Miss Fame, Nyle DiMarco, Jeremy O. Harris, Law Roach, and Symone.

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Mikelle Street

February 03 2020 8:45 AM EST

May 31 2023 4:28 PM EST

MikelleStreet

A park in Brooklyn, New York, is set to be renamed after Marsha P. Johnson, a notable trans activist in LGBTQ+ history and integral figure in the Stonewall Uprising. The park is currently known as the East River State Park, and it will now be the first in New York to be named after an openly LGBTQ+ person.

"New York State is the progressive capital of the nation, and while we are winnign the legal battle for justice for the LGBTQ community, in many ways we are losing th ebroader war for equality, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said in a speech at the Human Rights Campaign gala on Saturday, where he announced the move.

Cuomo went on to say that attack against minorities like African Americans, Jewish people, Muslims and LGBTQ+ people that are motivated by "fear and intolerance" are on the rise. "We are fighting back, and we will continue achieving progress and showing the rest of the nation the way forward." The news of the park naming joins an announcement from last year that Johnson and fellow activist Sylvia Rivera, with whom she cofounded Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries, which advocated for homeless LGBTQ+ youth, would be the subjects of a monument set in Manhattan. The permanent monuments will be among the first in the world dedicated to trans women.