Victoria Cruz, a veteran of the 1969 Stonewall uprising and unwavering advocate for survivors of violence, died on June 25 from liver cancer. Fierce, generous, and unyielding, Cruz emerged from Stonewall as a witness to history who would spend more than five decades helping to shape it. She became a fixture of New York LGBTQ+ activism and in time, one of the community’s most beloved elders and mentors.

One of 11 children, Cruz arrived with her family in Red Hook, Brooklyn from Guánica, Puerto Rico as a young child. She occasionally quipped that she was “never in the closet” but “in the armoire,” and knew from an early age that she was a girl at a time when there was little language to describe her experience. She studied cosmetology and hairdressing at Metropolitan Vocational High School, before attending Brooklyn College where she earned a theater degree in 1982. She supported herself through beauty work, as a stripper, sex worker, and entertainer in the New York City nightlife scene, giving her first drag performance at the Grapevine in 1973 to a Billie Holiday song.

A regular at the Stonewall Inn, Cruz often arrived in what she described as “full drag and semi-drag.” In a 2025 interview she recounted details of the gay bar on Christopher Street – the lack of plumbing, except for the bathroom, and how she would only drink beer because the ice for mixed drinks was drawn from unsanitary garbage cans where glasses were rinsed.

 “[The cops] used to come in and raid the place, and put the lights on. If you were two men together, you’d look for a lesbian to sit with or talk to.” If you had make-up on, she said, they’d make you wash it off with dirty water from the mop bucket. Officers also did what she called “the Robin Hood.” 

“They used to take the bra straps in the back and pull them, you know, they were very heavy elastic, and let it go so it’ll hurt their back.”

Harassment was routine. But the night of Friday, June 27, 1969, was different. Maybe the cops weren’t given “the little brown bag pay off” or “enough money,” she speculated.

Cruz hadn’t planned to go that night. She had work the next day at a beauty parlor but her boyfriend, Frankie, was a bouncer at Stonewall — and “a cheat.”

“I went and stalked him.” When he asked her to go home, she said, “‘No, I’m going to wait up here, because tonight you’re going home with me.'”

It was close to midnight, and the air was hot and humid, she recalled. A full moon in the sky. Judy Garland had just been buried, and the atmosphere in the Village was solemn – “like the calm before the storm.”  Standing near the steps next to the Stonewall, Cruz spotted Sylvia Rivera—who would also become a prominent trans rights figure—with her friends across the street by Sheridan Square Park.

The paddy wagons came. The bar got raided, yet again. But this time, a rebellion began to simmer.

“And then the crowd started getting a little bit rowdier outside, they started throwing pennies,” Cruz recalled. “They were calling them names, you know, ‘dirty copper.’ ” As cops started loading people into the paddy wagons, she “saw one queen got punched.” She thought it was Miss Major, who later publicly recounted taking a blow to the head and getting knocked unconscious.

Police brought a paddy wagon around and went back inside the bar. “And here comes a brick out of Sheridan Square Park, and it cracked the window, and they closed all the doors as a barricade. We were hearing noise from inside.”

Frankie came out to see whether she was still there. A Canadian in the country illegally, he wanted to leave. Cruz wanted to stay. “That’s serious when they started burning stuff – and then Frankie says, let’s get out of here.” She recalled the violence escalating. “First it was garbage pails. Then they started setting up fire on cars. And I said, no, no, no. That’s too crazy.”

After the raid, Frankie’s boss called him in “to clean out the basement and try to straighten up whatever the cops smashed up over there.” Frankie found one of three drink-price signs, and downstairs, the dog, Rusty, who guarded the liquor (“even though the liquor was watered down”). One of the owners let Frankie take him home. “I was so afraid of dogs, but I gave him food, and then he became my best friend and my protector.”

As for the sign, she kept it in her possession and shared that she hoped to return it to Stonewall along with photos of Frankie and Rusty. “They are part of our original history and they belong there.”

Those nights of chaos and violence are now widely regarded as the birth of the modern gay rights movement. One year later, Cruz joined thousands in what she called “the big first gay pride liberation march.”

“She was definitely one of our mothers in the movement,” says Shelby Chestnut, now executive director of Transgender Law Center, who worked with “Miss Vicky” at the New York City Anti-Violence Project (AVP) from 2010 to 2017. Cruz first came to AVP seeking support after being sexually assaulted by members of the nursing staff while working at Cobble Hill Health Center. She later volunteered at AVP and remained with the organization for 18 years, eventually coordinating the domestic violence project and serving as a senior counselor advocate.

Shay Huffman, a school social worker and former AVP Board Member, credits Cruz with being her lifeline while going through intimate partner violence. “By the time I got to AVP, I was 95 pounds,” says Huffman. “I seriously doubted I would survive. I had lost my appetite, wasn’t eating, and felt like my spirit was being sucked out of me.” Huffman says it was important to her that Cruz was a woman of color. “She heard me. She met me where I was. She validated me. She gave me hope and encouragement. She made me believe, ‘Maybe I can survive this.’ It was the first step from becoming a fighter and survivor to really thriving.”

Cruz’s impact extended beyond those she counseled. For many young trans people, the presence of an elder figure like “Miss Vicky” was not something to be taken lightly, Shelby Chestnut says.

“Especially at the time when she got into advocacy, in an ‘official’ way, there was a real expansion of trans justice organizations in New York City, and she would come to all of the events and be this big voice of reason. Even in the face of so much terribleness in the world right now—even at almost 80 years old—she was so clear and articulate: ‘We can’t back down. We’ve been here before. We can’t give people new ground in this moment to take our power and livelihood away.’ She imparted this to a new generation of organizers and leaders in a way that not many people could.”

“She came up in a post-Stonewall reality but also was clear that so much of our conditions didn’t change just because Stonewall birthed our movement.”

Her commitment to justice came to wider public attention with the release of the 2017 documentary “The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson.” The film documents her meticulous investigation into the 1992 death of her contemporary, Marsha P. Johnson, a Black trans woman whose death was ruled a suicide despite suspicious circumstances. Cruz’s probing not only helped expose the very real possibility that Johnson was murdered, but also underscored a broader reality: Many trans women of the era were treated as throwaways, their deaths denied the attention and justice they deserved. 

Following Cruz’s death, the documentary’s director, David France, paid tribute to Cruz on Facebook: 

“Throughout her life she embodied pure joy, something she learned from Marsha P. Johnson (whom she called “The Rosa Parks of the gay movement”), and fierce resistance, which she dedicated herself to in her last conversation with Sylvia Rivera on her death bed. She promised Sylvia she would ‘keep the community together.’  And she did that and more. She died on Pride Week, her highest of holy days. There never will be another like her.”

“Victoria loved the beach,” recalls Cruz’s sister, Heyde Cruz, 73. “She called it her sanctuary and as my children and my other siblings’ children were growing, she would take them to the beach and show them how beautiful it was, picking up seashells and other beach objects on the sand and they loved it.”

 Indeed, Cruz was a popular presence at the People’s Beach at Jacob Riis Park in Queens, where she was often spotted beneath a sun tent in colorful attire and her signature headband with feathers and cowrie shells. She was considered royalty at this haven for queers near the former Neponsit Hospital — a building that fell into ruin over decades before ultimately being demolished, despite protests by a community that had laid claim to a landmark no one else seemed to want.

In a 2023 conversation, the “Queen of Riis” recounted tales of noble mischief dating back to the earliest days when she had first set foot on the sands in 1963. The facility had been running as a “Home for the Aged” and the gay folks delighted in helping elderly residents sneak out to frolic on the beach.

 “We would tell them when the guys were coming so they could run back to the premises,” she said. She loved hearing the concerts from the facility’s gazebo, where patients would be taken out for lunch. “I loved to go on Sunday mornings because of the church services,” Cruz said. “They played the most wonderful American gospel I ever heard.”

Cruz had hoped that the building might be preserved and turned into a hospice, where “the sounds of the sea, the sun, the gulls [might] make them enjoy life more, especially in their last days.” 

Last December, The Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative (SIGBI) honored Cruz with a Brick Award for Community Activism. Latina actor, model and trans activist Angelica Christina introduced Cruz, highlighting the elder’s fight for the LGBTQ+ community as “front and center,” noting she had “done so with courage, conviction and compassion.”

“From being a longtime leader at the Anti-Violence Project, to being a part of the documented history at Stonewall, Victoria has supported survivors of anti-LGBTQIA+ violence when few others would,” said Christina, herself a survivor of sexual assault and homelessness. “She fought for safety and accountability and dignity at a time when our stories – especially that of BIPOC trans women – were too often ignored… “

To a standing ovation, Cruz spoke to those who have long admired her spirit, as well as a new generation reaching for the torch amid a renewed political tempest intent on extinguishing the most marginalized:

“We resisted at Stonewall and we can resist now because they’re not going to erase us,” Cruz assured. “Today, it is better to be yourself. Life is much easier when you are you.” 

“And I thank you for this prize, because like Sylvia [Rivera] said – and I promised her – that wherever I would go, I will try to keep the community together because we do have the numbers, and with our allies, we can defeat them anytime… 

“We’re here from the beginning and we’re going to be here ’til the end.”

The Wanda Alston Foundation, which provides housing and support services for homeless LGBTQ youth in the D.C. metro area, announced on July 20 that its founding executive director, Brian Watson, has passed away.

In a statement the Alston Foundation called Watson “one of Washington, D.C.,’s most passionate advocates for LGBTQ+ youth experiencing homelessness.”

Neither the statement nor others who knew Watson have disclosed the cause of death or his age. Longtime LGBTQ community activist Rayceen Pendarvis said she heard only that Watson’s passing followed “a long time illness.”

“The origins of the Wanda Alston Foundation can be traced to a meeting convened by then-Mayor Anthony Williams at the request of Wanda Alston, the Mayor’s Director of LGBTQ Affairs,” the statement says.

“During that meeting, Brian spoke powerfully about the growing crisis of homelessness among LGBTQ+ youth in the District of Columbia and the urgent need for dedicated housing and support services,” it says. “His advocacy helped crystalize a vision that every young person deserves a safe place to call home.”

The statement points out that following Alston’s untimely death, Watson joined other community leaders “to transform that vision into reality by establishing the Wanda Alston Foundation in her memory.”

It says that today the Alston Foundation “proudly carries forward the mission Brian helped create by providing emergency and transitional housing, counseling, workforce development, life-skills training, and other supportive services that empower LGBTQ+ youth to achieve stability, independence, and hope for the future.”

Watson’s LinkedIn page says he served as executive director of the Alston Foundation from July 2013 to March 2014.  The Washington Blade reported in April 2014 that the Alston Foundation announced in a March 11, 2014, statement that Watson had resigned to “pursue other opportunities.”   

His LinkedIn page shows he worked for or with in a supporting role three local nonprofit organizations since leaving the Alston Foundation, including serving from February 2019 to November 2019 as a Methamphetamine Services Specialist for the D.C. group HIPS, which provides services for drug users and sex workers.

According to his LinkedIn page, from October 2014 to “present,” he also served as Chief Innovation Officer for the Propel Foundation, Inc., which he described as a “501c3 nonprofit organization founded in D.C. that works to strengthen nonprofit organizations through fiscal sponsorship and capacity building.”

A Facebook posting by his brother, Vidale Watson, says his family will be making arrangements for a memorial service and will share the date, time, and location once the details have been finalized.

“There are no words to describe the heartbreak our family is feeling,” Vidale Watson wrote. “While we are grateful for every prayer, kind word, and act of support we’ve received over the past week, this loss is still incredibly fresh.”

Frank Larue Asher, described by friends and family members as an acclaimed urban gardener who operated a nonprofit nursery business in D.C.’s Shaw neighborhood from around 2008 until his retirement in 2018 when he moved to Cumberland, Md., and served on the board of a local museum, died July 15.

His longtime friend Raphael Aguon said his passing followed a years-long battle with cancer.

“He was a master gardener who worked diligently to make beautiful spaces for us passersby to enjoy and be inspired,” Aguon said in a Facebook posting. “Frank was kind, and fierce when it came to advocating for LGBTQ rights,” Aguon wrote. “He was deeply loving, sensitive, intelligent, inquisitive, and wondrously creative.”

A Washington Blade profile on Asher published in 2014 reported he was a native of California who moved to D.C. in 1994 as a conference organizer and a short time later began upgrading “sidewalk tree boxes” near his then Dupont Circle home before taking a job managing a local floral shop.

He next started a local landscaping business called Fairies Crossing that specialized in residential, rooftop, and commercial installations, he told the Blade.

In 2008, Asher opened his nursery called the Old City Farm and Guild in what had been a trash-strewn empty lot across from his then new nearby home in the city’s Shaw neighborhood.

Located at 925 Rhode Island Ave., N.W., the sprawling nursery offered a wide range of plant-related items such as seedlings, flowering plants, vegetable plants, shrubs, soils and compost, and gardening supplies. Described by Asher as a place “where people and plants come together,” the Old City Farm and Guild also became a community gathering place.

The Blade profile on Asher reported it soon began hosting performances by local musicians “in a step-down oval space serving as an amphitheater for outdoor neighborhood dances and movie nights projecting films onto a whitewashed wall.”

Asher stated in online postings that in 2018 he sold his businesses to retire and moved to Cumberland, Md., where, among other things, he served on the board of Gilchrist Museum of the Arts.

At the time of his passing the museum released a statement calling Asher “a talented local artist, a devoted supporter of the museum, a former board member, and, above all, a genuinely kind soul. His passion for the arts and his generosity touched countless lives, leaving a lasting impact on our community.”

Melissa Ryan, Asher’s niece, appeared to highlight Asher’s life as he was known by friends and family members in her own Facebook posting.

“He loved people, animals, and plants, all living things were respected and loved,” she wrote. “He was an actor, an artist, an author, an amazing gardener, heavily involved in his communities, always helping, seeking out needs and doing anything he could to fulfill them.”