Featured on 1010 WINS last week, The Strategic Trans Alliance for Radical Reform (f.k.a Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries), the New York based non profit organization which focuses on high impact litigation and advocacy designed to defend and protect the rights of TGNC individuals, has filed a lawsuit against NYS Governor Hochul and a list of state agencies, challenging the state’s refusal to follow its own rules–as well as state and federal law– failing to declare certain sites, areas and districts within it’s control as “historic”.

Executive Director of STARR, has been quoted saying "what started this fight is the fact that the state is refusing to listen to advocates and activists who have been defending and proclaiming this part of the city for decades."

The lawsuit, filed on the third day of Black History Month (as an Article 78 Proceeding, a type of lawsuit which asks judge to review decisions of government officials), cites the clear language of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, as well as the New York State Historic Preservation Act of 1980, and argues that state officials are ignoring their duties to list and protect all sites, areas and districts with historical significance, on the state registry of historic places: state officials are intentionally omitting crucial Black, and TGNC history, including the area of Hudson River Park, or the “Piers” (45 and 46 respectively), the Ballroom scene, as well as the site of the drawing of Marsha P. Johnson, and, the site where her body was pulled from the Hudson River in 1992. In 2002 upon her death, Sylvia Rivera’s ashes were scattered at the location where Marsha P Johnson’s body exited the water in a massive public memorial. The area described in the filing, is arguably one of the most important pieces of real estate in America, with regards to its historic and cultural significance to Black TLGBQ+ communities and their eventual impact on the city, state, nation and eventually, the world.

The suit, which was filed by STARR E.D. Mariah Lopez in Supreme Court, Albany NY, is asking a court to set aside the state’s refusal to view this Black, TLGBQ+ history as “important”, and, seeks an order halting construction of a beach and other amenities planned for Gansevoort Peninsula, just west of NYC’s trendy Meatpacking District.

January 2021 S.T.A.R.R. and FIERCE NYC sent a letter to state officials warning that it couldn’t proceed with construction of the beach, and, that the state could not continue to ignore the Black, TLGBQ+ history and culture, linked to and associated with, certain areas of state parkland.

Instead of the beach, the suit asks the court to force officials to bring in experts who study African American and Queer history to substantiate the areas historical sigificance.

S.T.A.R.R. and FIERCE NYC are demanding that state officials reduce the project's sizable price tag of 78 million dollars–designating the area an historic district and–seek community input and/or establish a community green space as part of any development or construction to memorialize Ballroom Scene,

Marsha P. Johnson, and Sylvia Rivera.

The court hearing is next week on March 25th. please sign this petition to show your support for the trans community