25 Sylvia: That was one of the sit-ins. It was a nice sit-in for three or four days. My brothers and sisters from the gay community themselves were not very, very supportive. Eric: Was STAR formed already by then? Sylvia: Actually STAR was born out of the NYU sit-in. Eric: What does STAR mean? Sylvia: Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries. The people that held that sit-in for three days was my people, the people from STAR. The people… We were there and everybody says always, because you didn’t have a place to live. That wasn’t true, we could have picked up a trick and stayed at a hotel. We were there for them, Marsha, myself, and everybody else. When they came in and threw us out, there was nobody there except what they call the street people or the STAR people. Eric: How many queens were involved in STAR? Was it a small group? Three, four? Half dozen? Sylvia: It was very small. It was like, it was myself, Marsha Johnson, Bambi Lamour, Endora. Bebe, Bebe was part of my group at one time. Eric: What was the reason for starting it? Sylvia: Why was the reason? Because my brothers and sisters kept on using us and we wanted to be by ourselves. Eric: You weren’t getting fairly treated by them? Sylvia: We weren’t. The Gay Liberation Front did give us the vanguard of the revolution. We were the vanguard of the revolution, but Gay Liberation Front was too revolutionary. GAA came into their power at that time. Eric: What were you and Marsha try- ing to do? What were your hopes then for what you were working for? Sylvia: Marsha and I had a building on Second Street, which we called STAR House. When we asked the community to help us [tears coming down face] there was nobody to help us. We were nothing. We were nothing! They had… Now we were taking care of kids that were younger than us. I mean, Marsha and I were young and we were taking care of them. And we kept it going for about a year or two. We went out and made that money off the streets to keep these kids off the street. Eric: So, you sold yourselves to take care of the kids. Sylvia: Instead of showing them what we were doing, ’cause we already went through it. Eric: Because you wanted to protect them? What were you protecting them from? Sylvia: From the world. From life in general. You know, to show them that there was a better life. Eric: In the years since her death in 2002, Sylvia Rivera has become an icon—a symbol of LGBTQ people fighting against oppression and for respect and equal rights. So long! Until next time! 85 90 95 100 105 110 115 120 125 130 135 140 145 150 155