In 1973, only a few years after the Stonewall uprising, Rivera was excluded from the speakers’ list at a gay pride rally organized to celebrate its anniversary because the crowd was uncomfortable with her profession. Furious, Rivera got onstage anyway and castigated the crowd for abandoning their queer sex worker brothers and sisters who had been arrested and jailed for their means of survival. “I will not put up with this shit,” she shouted. “The people are trying to do something for all of us, and not men and women that belong to a middle-class white club. And that’s what you all belong to!”
