WASHINGTON SQUARE NEWS (NEW YORK UNIVERSITY) -- Marc Robert Stein, a professor of History at San Francisco State University and editor of “The Stonewall Riots,” said the sculpture symbolizes the diversity and intersectionality of the LGBTQ+ community, since Johnson was Black, gay, transgender, poor and a sex worker.
“Her embodiment of those identities served and serves as a reminder of divisions and hierarchies within queer and trans worlds,” Stein said. “Although I haven’t seen the statue yet [in person], its placement in proximity to George Segal’s ‘Gay Liberation’ work — often described as featuring two standing white men and two seated white women — might also serve to create conversation and dialogue about the gender, class, race and sexual politics of artistic representation.”