Illustration: Ashling Larkin 

Marsha P Johnson was a Black transgender woman who found joy as a drag queen amidst the nightlife of New York. She was a pivotal and often erased instigator of the Stonewall riots, a founding member of STAR and STAR House, and later of The Gay Liberation Front. In 2017, Sydney Scott wrote for Essence: “you can’t talk about the movements and important moments in the LGBT community without mentioning Marsha P Johnson.”

Johnson was a strong leader and brave activist who was consequently subjected to prejudice and violence for much of her life. She struggled with mental health and alcoholism, and spent much of her life homeless due to lack of support and acceptance of LGBTQ+ people. She died in 1992 and though it was ruled a suicide, many have used her death as a symbol for the oft-overlooked and covered up violence towards, and murder of, black trans women. Her spirit lives on through The Marsha P Johnson Institute (MPJI), which creates an entry point for Black women and gender non-conforming femmes to obtain the skills, financial and programmatic resources necessary in advocating for an end to violence against all trans people.  

Ellen Desmond grew up in Ireland, where she worked at editorial and project management level on various magazines and publications aimed at students. She was awarded the title of Ireland’s Best Student Editor in 2016, just before she moved to Edinburgh to complete an MSc in Publishing. She has co-edited and published a popular anthology about bisexuality. She is a passionate intersectional feminist, and an advocate of mental health reform and LGBTQ+ rights.

As Assistant Editor she is responsible for commissioning and editing great content for Fearless Femme, and conducting research on the mental health to support the social mission of Fearless Femme.

Ashling is a Scotland-based comic artist, illustrator & animator. She graduated in 2016 from DJCAD with a 2:1 Bdes(Hons) in animation and has since been doing freelance work at the Dundee Comics Creative Space at Inkpot studio while also working on her current ongoing project, a fantasy-adventure webcomic called “The Enchanted Book”.