There has been a long-held discussion around who threw the first punch at Stonewall.įifty years later, the events of 28th June 1969, have been called “ the Stonewall riots.” However, DeLarverie was very clear that “riot” is a misleading description: They’ll just walk away, and that’s a good thing to do because I’ll either pick up the phone or I’ll nail you.”Īfter she told Curve Magazine in 2008 that she was the long-unidentified “Stonewall lesbian” who helped incite the rebellion, she became known as the “Rosa Parks of Stonewall.” “No people even pull it around me that know me. “I can spot ugly in a minute,” she said in a 2009 interview. She was on the lookout for what she called “ugliness” which was any form of intolerance, bullying or abuse of her “baby girls.” Tall, androgynous and armed (with her state gun permit) Stormé roamed lower 7th and 8th Avenues and points between into her 80s, patrolling the sidewalks and checking in at lesbian bars. In fact, she attracted the attention of legendary photographer Diane Arbus, whose 1961 portrait of her, “Miss Storme de Larverie, the lady who appears to be a gentleman,” has appeared in multiple Arbus retrospectives, including a 2016 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.ĭeLarverie lived for several years at the Chelsea Hotel, and a handful of documentaries have explored DeLarverie’s drag persona and her time as a guardian of the Village, serving as a security guard at the neighbourhood gay bars and as a more general watch-keeper. While her Jewel Box colleagues mostly appeared in drag onstage only, she would often walk around New York in her suits, starting something of a trend: “I was doing it, and then other lesbians started doing it!” she told. She is now considered to have been an influence on gender-nonconforming women’s fashion decades before unisex styles became accepted. Offstage, she had a striking, handsome, androgynous presence, and inspired other lesbians to adopt what had formerly been considered “men’s” clothing as streetwear. With her theatrical experience in costuming, performance and makeup, DeLarverie could pass as either a man or a woman, black or white. Several photographs of this time show Stormé DeLarverie with her cast-mates, channelling the male crooners of that era: in a shawl collar tuxedo, flanked by three female impersonators in glittery gowns or in headshots, straightening her French cuffs and sporting an impressive set of cufflinks. During this era when there were very few drag kings performing, her unique drag style and subversive performances became celebrated, influential, and are now known to have set a historic precedent. Jewel Box Revueĭuring shows, audience members would try to guess who the “one girl” was, among the revue performers, and at the end, Stormé would reveal herself as a woman during a musical number called, “A Surprise with a Song,” often wearing tailored suits and sometimes a moustache that made her “unidentifiable” to audience members.Īs a singer, she drew inspiration from Dinah Washington and Billie Holiday (both of whom she knew in person). She spent the ’50s and ’60s as the only “male impersonator” in the Jewel Box Revue, the period’s only racially integrated drag troupe: “There were around 25 guys and me,” she told in a 2010 interview.

She came out as a lesbian around the age of eighteen. She rode jumping horses with the Ringling Brothers Circus when she was a teenager although she was forced to stop riding horses after being injured in a fall. She instead celebrated her birthday on 24th December.Īs a child, DeLarverie faced bullying and harassment. Stormé’s Early LifeĪccording to DeLarverie, she was never given a birth certificate and was not certain of her actual date of birth. Stormé DeLarverie, who was born in New Orleans in 1920 to a black mother and a white father it is said that her mother was a servant for her father’s family.

Storme de laverie