Marsha P. Johnson: Google doodle on pioneer of LGBTQ+ rights movement

Google today dedicates doodle to Marsha P. Johnson, who is widely credited as one of the pioneers of the LGBTQ+ rights movement in the United States. Read further to know more on his charismatic figure below.

Marsha P. Johnson was an American gay liberation activist and self-identified drag queen. On this day in 2019, he was posthumously honoured as a grand marshal of the New York City Pride March.

Marsha P. Johnson was born Malcolm Michaels Jr. on August 24th, 1945, in Elizabeth, New Jersey. After graduating high school in 1963, she moved to New York City’s Greenwich Village, a burgeoning cultural hub for LGBTQ+ people. Here, she legally changed her name to Marsha P. Johnson. Her middle initial—“P.”—allegedly stood for her response to those who questioned her gender: “Pay It No Mind.”

A beloved and charismatic fixture in the LGBTQ+ community, Marsha P. Johnson is credited as one of the key leaders of the 1969 Stonewall uprising – widely regarded as a critical turning point for the international LGBTQ+ rights movement. The following year, she founded the Street Transvestite (now Transgender) Action Revolutionaries (STAR) with fellow transgender activist Sylvia Rivera. STAR was the first organization in the U.S. to be led by a trans woman of colour and was the first to open North America’s first shelter for LGBTQ+ youth.

In 2019, New York City announced plans to erect statues of Marsha P. Johnson and Rivera in Greenwich Village, which will be one of the world’s first monuments in honour of transgender people. According to Bob Kohler, he would walk naked up Christopher Street and be taken away for two or three months to be treated with chlorpromazine, an antipsychotic medication. Upon returning, the medication would wear off over the course of one month and Johnson would then return to normal.