The Weekly Read for June 29, 2024, is “Street Evangelists and Transgender Saints: Sylvia Rivera, Marsha P. Johnson, and the Religions of the Afro-Americas” by Ahmad Greene-Hayes. The article was published in the inaugural issue of QTR: A Journal of Trans and Queer Studies in Religion, edited by Joseph A. Marchal and Melissa M. Wilcox and available Open Access.
Abstract
This article historicizes the religious fervor of the 1969 Stonewall riots—multiple direct actions against the anti-Black and homo- and transphobic NYPD and white-owned bars in Greenwich Village—by examining the political organizing of Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, cofounders of Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries. This article queries and queers the field’s preoccupation with the cisgender and heterosexual regarding religious affiliation and the formation of liberation theologies, and probes at the heart of Johnson’s and Rivera’s critical absences in religious studies on the one hand, and the critical absence of their religious sensibilities in narrations of queer and trans politics on the other.
QTR: A Journal of Trans and Queer Studies in Religion is an open-access journal dedicated to expanding both scholarly and public knowledge about the rich and complex connections between religion, gender, and sexuality. Featuring cutting-edge scholarship at the intersections of queer studies, trans studies, and religious studies, the journal aims to expand the depth and reach of what trans and queer studies in religion is becoming. The journal demonstrates the relevance of various modes of gender, sexuality, and embodiment wherever one might find religious people, practices, or ideas.
The Weekly Read is a weekly feature in which we highlight articles, books, and chapters that are freely available online. You’ll be able to find a link to the selection here on the blog as well as on our social media channels. Enjoy The Weekly Read, and check back next week for something new to read for free.
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