Proudly Chug Beer Honoring LGBTQ Activist Marsha P. Johnson
Cheers, queers! A Washington, D.C. brewery is honoring late LGBTQ activist Marsha P. Johnson to commemorate Pride month, the Washington Blade reports.
DC Brau has tapped D.C.-based artist Maggie Dougherty as the winner of its third annual Pride Pils Can Design competition. Her colorful design pays homage to Johnson, the legendary New York City activist best known for her tireless work with the transgender and homeless communities.
Johnson will appear on about 28,000 cans of specially packaged Brau Pils, rolled out this summer in the National Capital Region and select markets throughout the Northeast, coinciding with Capital Pride.
“Maggie’s design cuts to the core of what this project has always been about for us, celebrating the beauty, love and diversity of the LGBTQ community here in D.C. and beyond,” says DC Brau CEO and co-founder Brandon Skall in a statement.
“This design celebrates the progress that’s been made since Stonewall while remembering how much more work needs to be done,” Dougherty explains. “The flowers on the label are for those blooms that Marsha was known to wear in her hair, as well as 27 pansies representing the 27 trans deaths that took place in 2018 and early 2019.”
All proceeds from the sale of the 1,200 cases of Pride Pils will benefit SMYAL, which empowers LGBTQ youth, and the Blade Foundation, which funds LGBTQ journalism and creates scholarships for LGBTQ journalists.
BreakingT apparel has also created two limited-edition shirts featuring the 2019 Pride Pils can design, with a portion of those proceeds also being donated.
Johnson, known as the “mayor of Christopher Street,” played a pivotal role in the 1969 Stonewall riots, credited with launching the modern LGBTQ rights movement. With Sylvia Rivera she co-founded the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), one of the first groups for gender-nonconforming people in America, and she later worked with ACT UP as a care provider for people with AIDS.
A 2017 Netflix documentary, The Life and Death of Marsha P. Johnson, explores her legacy, as well as the mystery surrounding her death in 1992.
