Sylvia Rivera, born on July 2 in 1951, was a Latina American queer rights activist, member of the Gay Liberation Front, and community worker from the state of New York.

Rivera, who identified as a “half-sister”, participated in demonstrations with the Gay Liberation Front. With her close friend Marsha P. Johnson, Rivera co-founded the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), a socialist group dedicated to helping homeless young drag queens, gay youth, and trans women.

At different times in her life, Rivera battled substance abuse and lived on the streets, largely in the gay homeless community at the Christopher Street docks. Her experiences made her more focused on advocacy for those who, in her view, mainstream society and the assimilationist factions of the LGBT community were leaving behind.

Rivera died during the dawn hours of February 19th, 2002, at St. Vincent’s Hospital, of complications from liver cancer. Activist Riki Wilchins said this of her: “In many ways, Sylvia was the Rosa Parks of the modern transgender movement, a term that was not even coined until two decades after Stonewall”.

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    • solongbeengood [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      4 months ago

      Do you have bad credit you’re trying to hide or are you worried about your co-signers credit? With corporate landlords there’s usually no flexibility whatsoever but sometimes with smaller landlords you can get lucky if you can explain why it’s bad.

      • Blockocheese [any]@hexbear.net
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        4 months ago

        I’m in a weird purgatory with my citizenship and afraid they’ll ask for a pic of my social security card (as keeps happening when I’ve tried to open a savings account and when I tried to get a credit card on my own) that I cant provide. I am a US citizen but basically can’t prove it which for a lot of things means basically being undocumented. Its weird and whenever I try explaining it, it sounds like I’m lying which I think would guarantee I dont get approved, even by a small landlord :/

        I actually do have zero credit but recently got added as an authorized user on someone else’s but that won’t show a score for 3-6 months and I need to escape an abusive household

        • solongbeengood [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          4 months ago

          Oh my, that does sound very difficult. I’m sorry you have to try to navigate that! If you can afford it, offering the co-signer without a credit check on you and offering either to prepay what rent you can afford or offering a larger security deposit could work, especially if it’s someone renting like just a room and you have solid proof of income going back a bit.