The artist and activist has two books on Marsha P. Johnson, a central force in the Stonewall uprising and nascent LGBTQ+ rights movement, due out in May. Both received starred PW reviews: Marsha (Tiny Reparations), a biography for adults, and One Day in June (Putnam, ages 4–8), a picture book illustrated by Charlot Kristensen that celebrates Johnson’s legacy. Tourmaline spoke with PW about bringing her revolutionary subject to life.
What led you to Marsha P. Johnson?
About 20 years ago, I was hanging out in the West Village—with queer, transgender, nonconforming people of color; on the piers, on Christopher Street—and it just felt so enlivening, like I could be all of who I was. I started hearing about Stonewall: People were like, “That’s why we can be out and about so freely. It’s because of Marsha.” I wanted to know more, and little by little, I became friends with her friends who were still alive and learned about the breadth and depth of her work.
How does Marsha relate to your 2018 film Happy Birthday, Marsha!, a fictionalized version of events leading up to the Stonewall uprising?
The book is an extension of the film. In the 2010s, before I even thought of making a film, I was going into the New York Public Library, doing a lot of academic and oral history. I revived that for the book, working with Che Gossett [Tourmaline’s sibling], who’s a researcher and a professor, and interviewing people like Agosto Machado, who met Marsha in 1963 and was a street queen alongside her, and [Johnson’s roommate] Randy Wicker, who has a long history in the LGBTQIA movement. The two of them living together—such icons. There are parts of Marsha’s life that I just didn’t understand when we shot the film, parts I have an even keener awareness of now.
What have you discovered about Johnson that surprised you?
She had this whole California life that I didn’t know about. She was part of the first AIDS Walk in L.A., she was doing performances in West Hollywood, she was living in Calabasas. Marsha had a Florida life and performed in London—not just for the theater scene, but in AIDS hospitals and hospices. It felt thrilling to learn more.
Why did you opt for a framing device for One Day in June, an elder walking a child through moments in Marsha’s life?
It’s like how I learned about Marsha—from the griots, the stories that we keep in the community—and it shows that trans people and their friends get to be elders. Marsha was a caretaker for children in her life, including her nephew, Al Michaels. He talks about how Marsha and Sylvia [Rivera, Johnson’s friend and fellow activist] were his babysitters and always lit up the room. I wanted to create a story that foregrounded relationships of care, of self-expression, of being all of who you are, and joyously so. That was how Marsha lived.
What do you hope readers of your books take away?
The most important part of Marsha P. Johnson is alive and present today, and we can tune into it. It’s like a radio station, and we’re listening to it when we’re feeling really good, we’re feeling openhearted, we’re feeling like, oh, I get to show up and show out. I get to adorn myself in ways other people might not understand, but it works for me. That’s a consistent through line of who Marsha P. Johnson is.
