Afterlives: Marsha P. Johnson

In light of Miss Major's passing on October 13th, we're honoring the story of a true legend and sharing never heard before excerpts of her interview for  Afterlives . May she rest in power and may we never lose sight of her legacy.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tune in to a magical night spent at The Stonewall Inn celebrating Marsha's 80th Birthday! The Afterlives live show kicked off with an unforgettable performance by Hot Peach Michael Michelle Lynch, followed by the brilliant insights of Marsha's biographer Tourmaline, and closed out with words from Marsha's friends and family, plus a group rendition of Happy Birthday! See omnystudio.com/listene...

We need YOUR vote to win a Signal Award . We’re SO excited to announce that Afterlives: Marsha P. Johnson is a finalist for Best LGBTQ+ Limited Series! It means so much to our whole team and this is an incredible opportunity to share Marsha's story with all new listeners. If you enjoyed listening, please  VOTE HERE:   https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting#/2025/limited-series-s...

Before Pride was corporate. Before protections. Before visibility. There was survival—and there was community. In this bonus episode, we sit at the feet of two living legends of New York’s queer underground. First  Ceyenne Doroshow  - the performer, activist, researcher and the unstoppable force behind  G.L.I.T.S.  - takes us back to Brooklyn in the ‘70s and &...

Hear the story of the brilliant activist, artist and writer who has been researching Marsha for nearly 20 years! We’re sharing unaired segments of our multiple conversations with Tourmaline, so you can learn more about her book, her creative process across mediums, and her wide ranging scholarship of Black trans lives. Coinciding with her recent biography Marsha: The Joy and Defiance of Mars...

These days, you don’t have to go far to find Marsha. Every June, big box stores roll out the Pride merch, with t-shirts, candles, and ornaments adorned with Marsha’s image. But what happens when those corporations don’t see our stories as profitable anymore? Trans folks are doing what we’ve always done, showing up for each other. Hear from our community leaders and elders w...

Marsha spent the final days of her life surrounded by people who loved her. When she was struggling with an oncoming breakdown, a friend escaped with her to a cottage on the beach. Her final Pride was filled with love and appreciation as she marched down the streets with her fellow revolutionary, Sylvia Rivera. Just days later, though, Marsha’s body was found in the Hudson River. The police...

The AIDS crisis devastated our community in the 1980s. It’s an era defined by loss. But those feelings of helplessness gave rise to unprecedented love in the form of caretaking and bold activism. For Marsha, the 80s were all of these things. The era was also marked by a new home and a chosen family in Hoboken, New Jersey. Hear how Marsha found stability, took care of herself, and provided so...

Marsha’s status as an icon extends beyond activism and into the arts. She was an inspiration to others and a creative in her own right. From her trendsetting DIY looks salvaged from New York’s dumpsters to her appearances with a downtown gay theater troupe, Marsha was immersed in the underground art world. In performances at home and abroad, she rarely sang on key and had to read her l...

“STAR is into two things very heavily. One is radical politics. And the second is prostitution.” At least that’s how one journalist in the 1970s described the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), a group started by Marsha and fellow trans organizers. Life on the streets and with STAR meant freedom and friendship, but it could also be really tough. Marsha was ca...

There’s no moment in queer history more celebrated than the Stonewall riots, which set off the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement. There’s also no event that’s more hotly debated. To separate the truth from the myth, we first step onto the streets of Greenwich Village, a mecca of queer culture in the 60s. By all accounts The Stonewall Inn at the heart of the Village was a dump, but it...

A trip to Elizabeth, New Jersey, brings us into the heart of Marsha’s upbringing. We sit down with her sister, Jeannie, and her nephew, Al, to get a picture of Marsha’s childhood home and hear stories about the early ways Marsha dared to be different. We also learn about her hometown’s queer underground and the ways Marsha navigated her identity from an early age. By the time she...

Watching Marsha P. Johnson get ready for a date feels like spying on a long lost auntie. On some level, that’s exactly who Marsha is as a mother in the fight for trans rights. But in her grainy home videos, she’s not a living legend. She’s just a human. Our debut episode cuts through myths and mysteries to uncover the complicated contradictions that made up Marsha’s life. H...

Marsha P. Johnson is THE icon of the LGBTQ+ movement and a mother of the fight for trans rights. Today, you can buy T-shirts emblazoned with her face or walk through a park named in her honor. This season on  Afterlives , we hear from Marsha in her own words.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Host Raquel Willis takes a moment to check in on the state of the world and our community. Plus, some exciting news about next season! Make sure you and your friends are subscribed because the stakes could not be higher.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Two incredible trans storytellers, ​​Kristen Lovell and Cecilia Gentili, share how they found their power in interview segments you haven’t heard before. Kristen Lovell , the documentary filmmaker behind The Stroll , talks about how Martin Scorsese inspired her to tell a New York story that she knew intimately. The conversation explores the history of New York’s Meatpacking District and the commun...

Enjoy unaired excerpts of interviews with two brilliant authors: Sydney Baloue and Tre’vell Anderson. Sydney Baloue , who is currently writing Undeniable: A History of Voguing, Ballroom, and How it Changed my Life and the World, dives deeper into the House of Xtravaganza’s legacy. He also opens up about his own foray into ballroom (which started in Europe) and reflects on his history-making perfor...

Layleen’s spirit is very much alive in her sister Melania’s home: photos dot the walls, a recording of Layleen’s voice lives inside her daughter’s teddy bear, and Melania surrounds herself with animals and pets as her sister once did. In the final episode, Melania reflects on how her own life has changed in the past four years and what she wishes for Layleen’s legacy. We’ll hear from activists fig...

Every year, the anniversary of Layleen’s death is a reminder to ask: has anything really changed? Many organizers have been personally touched by Layleen’s story and have spent years advocating for policy changes that would prevent a tragedy like hers from happening again. Major headlines have surrounded Layleen’s death: from steps taken towards decriminalizing consensual sex work, to the claim th...

June 2019 was especially deadly for trans women of color. Amidst a celebration of World Pride and the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, a crowd of 600 people came together to mourn Layleen Polanco. Just days after receiving the news that her sister died, Melania Brown found herself fighting her fear of public speaking to address the crowd and lead the call for justice. As weeks and months p...

An ominous email thread among correction officers led to Layleen’s placement in the Restrictive Housing Unit, which politicians and advocates alike agree is just another name for solitary confinement. Inside cell #6, Layleen’s day started like any other on Friday June 7. But as the afternoon unfolded, video footage shows Layleen left unattended by correction officers when she suffered a fatal seiz...

Dysfunctional, transphobic, dehumanizing. These are just a few ways people we interviewed described Rikers Island. We’ll take a look inside this notorious jail complex, hearing about the conditions firsthand from people who have worked there and been detained behind its bars. It’s not somewhere Layleen should have ended up – failed attempts at reform within the criminal justice system led to a $50...

Layleen’s mid-twenties weren’t easy. In the years leading up to her death at age 27, she was denied job opportunities, spent periods of time incarcerated, and struggled with her physical and mental health. Sex work was one way Layleen could support herself; but a sex work arrest set off a dehumanizing battle with the criminal justice system that led to her death. Layleen’s story is not an outlier....

Layleen Polanco was full of energy and always up for an adventure. From her love of music, to the first time she expressed her girlhood, we’ll explore how Layleen came to discover her sense of self and found her way to New York City’s ballroom scene. As a picture begins to form of her vibrant life, we also see how it took a turn and why her demise could have been prevented. See omnystudio.com/list...

The life and legacy of Layleen Xtravaganza Cubilette-Polanco is at the heart of Afterlives , a podcast about trans lives we’ve lost and the ways their stories have reshaped our world.  Known to light up a room, Layleen was an Afro-Latina trans woman in New York City who was sentenced to the city’s notorious jail complex on Rikers Island. She died there in 2019, at the young age of...