Throughout history, there have been many men and women who feel like they were born into the wrong sex. Often, their issues and struggles were swept under the rug at best or highlighted as a punishable crime at worst. However, it was only in 1965 when the term “transgender” was coined. As the concept of being transgender was given a name, the transgender community was also somewhat given a voice. In 1984, the concept of a transgender community came to be.
Transgender people often join marches, rallies, and exhibitions to assert their rights. Their voice is loud and proud, and they have made great changes in the LGBT quality of life. If you’d like a bit of a history lesson on how trans activism has improved the lives of LGBT members, below are just a few instances:
Magnus Hirschfeld
Hirschfeld was a German doctor and sexologist who carried out the first advocacy for homosexual and transgender rights. His sexual rights activism changed the way Germans viewed sexuality. His radical ideas inspired American human rights activist Henry Gerber, which led to him founding the first known gay rights organization in America.
Hirschfeld, however, was Jewish and he was often targeted by the right-wing. Sadly, many of Hirschfeld’s works were destroyed by the Nazis and he was forced into exile. Today, many LGBT activists band together to restore some of his works.
The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot in Tenderloin, San Francisco
A single trans woman in Compton’s cafeteria marked the beginning of trans activism in San Francisco. In 1966, police were harassing members of the LGBT community, and in protest, a woman threw coffee at a police officer. Members of the LGBT community poured into the streets to fight back, and eventually even regular people joined in to help out them out. This helped to show that the LGBT community had allies in the “gender-conforming” community.
Adela Vasquez
Vasquez is a Latina transgender woman who protested in San Francisco in 1993. She fought to ensure that the transgender community will no longer be labeled as disabled. This was a very hot issue because many transgender people who were labeled as disabled were unable to find decent work. It’s an ongoing battle, but as of 2014, 17 states and the District of Columbia now have laws to protect transgender people’s employment.
Brandon Teena
Also in 1993, a transman named Brandon Teena was found murdered in Nebraska with two of his friends. This event was adapted as a movie called Boys Don’t Crystarring Hilary Swank. Teena’s story became known to people all over the world. It promoted awareness of the struggles and violence against the transgender community. Thanks to the movie, more people began to empathize with their plight to make the world a safer place for the LGBT community.
Representation in Media
The media influences the public so much these days. When certain groups, organizations, and communities are shown in a positive light in TV and film, it helps teach people to become more open and accepting of them. However, this was not the case for the transgender community.
GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) studied the representation of transgender people in the media over the last 10 years. They found that transgender people were cast in victim roles 40% of the time. 21% of episodes featuring transgender people, on the other hand, showed them as either criminals or victims. In terms of what transgender people do for a living, 20% of the episodes GLAAD studied showed them as sex workers. Most alarmingly, 61% of episodes featuring transgender people contained transgender slurs and homophobic language.
Transgender activists assert that this kind of representation doesn’t represent the average experience of a transgender person. They continually try to give transgender people more positive visibility in the media. While most media outlets still cling to outdated beliefs about transgender people, some more progressive shows are slowly trying to represent transgender people as regular members of the community.