Sylvia Rivera

"And I will never apologize for that."

"My life is my protest. My existence is my resistance."

"We deserve better. We deserve everything."

"I'm going to keep fighting until we get it."

"That's a promise I make to myself and to my community."

"Street queens, unite! We are powerful together."

"I love my community with all my heart."

"And I will always fight for us."

"We are the ones we've been waiting for, and we need to start acting like it."

"I'm not going to hate myself because of the way I was born."

"Street queens are the frontline of this movement."

"We need to do the work that nobody else wants to do."

"My mother was my first teacher about survival and resistance."

"I don't care what people think about how I look or who I am."

"We have to create our own families, our own support systems."

"The revolution is not just about changing laws, it's about changing hearts."

"I learned more on the streets than I ever learned in school."

"We have to fight for ourselves because nobody else will."

"Love is the most radical act we can commit."

"I've survived things that would break most people."

"Our stories matter, even when the world tries to silence us."

"I'm grateful for every day I'm alive and able to fight."

"Fear is what keeps people from becoming who they're meant to be."

"We create community wherever we go because we have to."

"The margins are where the real power lies."

"I never waited for permission to exist."

"We are the beauty that the world tries to erase."

"History will remember us because we demanded to be remembered."

"I dance because it's the only freedom I've ever had."

"Patience is learning to wait for justice without losing hope."