Shining a Light on LGBTQ+ Christian History | Pride 2025
“When we see the ways in which Johnson protested the treatment of her community, we can see the possibilities for us to protest today.”
Carter Kelly,
QCF Operations Director
In a time where governments all over the world are taking away rights from trans people and encouraging violence against LGBTQ+ people, it feels like we are entering a time of hopelessness. The most powerful individuals in the world are telling us that what we as LGBTQ+ Christians and allies know to be truth is a lie. They are telling us that attacking the most marginalized in our society will make things better. They are telling us that all the ways we have known and affirmed trans people, through science, experience, and faith, are nothing but a passing fad or mass delusion. Yet we know that God wants us as LGBTQ+ people, and especially as trans people, to survive and thrive.
While her involvement in the 1969 Stonewall Riots is already well known, Marsha P. Johnson also exemplified the kind of life that Jesus showed us. I am hoping that some of these stories about her will be new to you and inspire you to recognize the God given gift of LGBTQ+ people. Some of this information is from communal histories that have been passed to me and some is from the work of trailblazing historian Tourmaline.
The first story is about her generosity and the abundance she had faith in during the leanest of times. Johnson was often without stable housing, living on people’s couches or the streets, spending her time walking around the streets of New York. Once, she came across a LGBTQ+ youth who was also living on the streets with nowhere to go and no money for food. She gave that youth her last bit of money, all that she had to her name, so that the youth could get food for the day. If this sounds familiar to you, that’s because it is the same action that Jesus praised in Mark 12:41-44. The poor widow “out of her poverty has put in everything she had” (NRSVUE). Out of her poverty, Johnson gave all that she had to help someone in her community who was in need. She knew that her community would do the same for her the next time she was in need.
In 1970, Johnson and Sylvia Rivera started Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) to support trans people who were not being served by the larger gay and lesbian rights movement. The group purchased an apartment in New York city and invited as many of their community members as could fit to live there if they didn’t have stable housing or were living on the streets. Many unhoused LGBTQ+ youth avoided the shelter system (then and now) due to experiences of discrimination, so the STAR home became a place where they found not only shelter, but also a radical acceptance. Again, we see Johnson living the kind of life that Jesus praised in Matthew 25:34-45. STAR gave food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, welcomed the stranger, gave (affirming) clothing to those without, and corresponded with imprisoned LGBTQ+ people.
Last, but not least, there was Stonewall. While the narratives of that first night in 1969 are complicated, contradictory, and varied (sound like a book you may know?), we do know that Marsha P. Johnson was there. For those who don’t know, on June 28, 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City. These raids were frequent, arresting patrons for things like dancing too close to someone of the same gender, wearing clothes that didn’t match the gender the police thought you should be, and arguing with the police when they grabbed your friends. On this night, however, the resistance from the people in and around the bar reached a breaking point. LGBTQ+ people were tired of the government attacks and persecution, they were no longer going to accept harassment and violence as the cost of going out and spending time with friends. Here is another echo of the biblical narrative: in all four Gospels (Matthew 26, Mark 14, Luke 22, and John 18) agents of the state came to arrest Jesus while he was spending time with his disciples and friends. They told him the ways in which he was caring for his community and teaching his community to care for each other were a threat to the government, to the powers that be. The Roman empire hung Jesus from the cross because the kind of radically inclusive world that he preached is in opposition to the oppression that governments mandate.
Johnson’s story inspires me and fuels my faith. She pushes me to be a better Christian despite the fact that she never called Christianity a motivating factor in her work. When we see the ways in which Johnson protested the treatment of her community, we can see the possibilities for us to protest today. We can protest through giving to those in need, through meeting the survival needs of the most vulnerable, and through marching in the streets. Protest does not begin and end at a rally, it can extend to all parts of our life. As this Pride month comes to an end, how are we considering showing up for our community? How are we protecting and caring for the most marginalized as a protest against a system that wants us gone?
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