Beyond the Binary: Empowering Trans Rights for a Just Society

Since today is Trans visibility day when this gets posted, I thought it would be a good reminder to go over the history of past, current and recurring struggles this amazing part of the LGBTQ+ community has gone through and is still going through to fight for a better life. To start off a bit of background into why this topic is so important to me, ever since I was little, I have been surrounded by people who had found their own truth in their gender, but the most important reason is because my older sibling is trans, seeing the struggles and discrimination they go through on a daily basis made me feel the need to highlight the struggles this community has been through since the very beginning.

Though transgender people have always been around, people who truly pushed the boundaries of what was considered to be the norms of gender showed up in around the 20th century. With one of the first attempts to medically transition being recorded to have been performed by a “Berlin based physician/sexologist Magnus Hirchfeld.” (“Society in Transition: A History of the Trans Movement | A.R.T.,” 2017).

(The picture shows Magnus Hirschfeld, he was a German physician and LGBTQ advocate.)

Hirschfeld published a book titled The Transvestites in 1919, to outline the research and the treatments he had done for transgender individuals. He advocated for trans rights as he believed that sex characteristics and biological traits were something that the world needed to adapt to, not the person themselves. The first male-to-female genitalia surgery was performed in 1931 for Dora Richter. Unfortunately Adolf Hitler said that Hirschfeld was “the most dangerous Jew in Germany” (“Society in Transition: A History of the Trans Movement | A.R.T.,” 2017) and had Nazis burn down Hirschfeld’s library in 1933.

Moving to the 1940s and 50s, discourse surrounding the medical lives of transgender people was politicised in the US, Alfred Kinsly and Harry Benjamin fought in court so that transgender people could have better access to medical care in California, unfortunately the state ruled against this, in turn, making it so sex-change operations were illegal to perform on anyone.

Due to the lack of protection transgender people had in this time, and still even now, they would be constantly harassed in public U.S. spaces by police officers. This constant harassment led to unease and hurt in the community, leading to the first riot of three that are known now for moving the “modern trans rights movement” (“Society in Transition: A History of the Trans Movement | A.R.T.,” 2017). The first of the three important riots of resistance to the oppression was in May of 1959 at a place called Cooper’s Donuts in Los Angeles, this riot was mostly led by African American and Latina/Latino people. They did this as a way to fight back against the unjust arrests by police. The second riot took place in the Tenderloin district residing in San Francisco the year of 1966 at a place called Compton’s Cafeteria, the reason being all too predictable as it was due to police harassment.

The third riot is probably the one most people know about due to how much it’s talked about even now when people talk about the progression of LGBTQ+ laws and important historical events, that being the riot that happened at the Stonewall Inn. Taking place June 1969 in New York City, This riot was extremely long but most notably had trans activists at the forefront of the riot, Sylvia Rivera being a well known name for throwing bottles at the police officers during the riot.

After the riots it sparked a new light in activism, giving a voice for sexual minorities. The STAR organization, also known as Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries was created by Sylvia Rivera as well as Marsha P. Johnson, they focused mainly on the trans and gay youth in New York.(“Society in Transition: A History of the Trans Movement | A.R.T.,” 2017).

The next medical advancement happened in 1980 when “Gender Identity Disorder” was added into the “third edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders”(“Society in Transition: A History of the Trans Movement | A.R.T.,” 2017) also known as the DSM-III. Adding this diagnosis into the DSM-III was extremely controversial in the community as it meant that being transgender was considered a mental disorder and not just a way some people lived their lives. But because this was now classified as medical, and not just a thought process, this meant that the government was forced to view gender- reassignment surgery and therapy as something that was needed instead of something that was viewed only as a cosmetic change. However due to the community not liking transgender people being labeled as having a mental disorder, in 2013 the DSM-V changed “gender identity disorder” to “gender dysphoria” which greatly reduced the stigma attached to the word disorder.

Many of the legal successes like the ones that protect and recognise transgender people as valid have only really appeared in the last twenty years. In 2004 The Gender Recognition Act was created by the UK to provide transgender people legal recognition that they have changed their gender. The next legal win happened 3 years later in 2007 when Spain made it allowed for a documented sex change to be made after two years of medical treatment as well as a doctor to diagnose said person with gender dysphoria. The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act was originally denied by the senate in 2007 but was then passed 2 years later in 2009. The U.S. federal government branched out employment protections for people who identified as transgender in 2010, then the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission in 2012 found that the discrimination against transgender people was violating the Title VII in the Civil Rights Act. Finally in 2017 the U.S. military announced that they will open their doors for transgender individuals.(“Society in Transition: A History of the Trans Movement | A.R.T.,” 2017)

Now that the amazing steps forward in accepting trans people as a normal and regular part of life, I need to say that unfortunately due to Donald Trump taking office, he has significantly set back the progress millions of people have fought to create. Donald Trump has signed many executive orders that relate to transgender people, none of them in support of the community. The main two he has signed are the one that bans trans girls and women from being able to participate in sports, this means that trans athletes are to only compete on the teams that align with the sex they were assigned to at birth. The second one that Donald Trump signed was to end the federal funding for the health care that is related to gender transitions for trans youth, meaning that he has banned health care workers from being able to provide any gender affirming care that is at all related to gender transitions if it is for a minor.(Beshay, 2025)

Since Donald Trump has been in office there has also been a large decrease of U.S. citizens who support laws that protect the transgender community. 2022 was the last year that Americans were against the laws that are less supportive and limit the protection and safeguarding the trans community. Now more Americans admit they prefer laws that require trans people to use the public restrooms that match up with the sex they were assigned to at birth and to make it illegal for public school districts to teach any material that has gender identity in elementary schools. With the bans and policies that hurt trans people gaining a rise in popularity, it also means that laws that protect people from being discriminated against and laws that require health insurance to cover medical care when transitioning has dropped. (Beshay, 2025)

This discrimination and backpedaling on laws that were made to protect trans people has and will continue to affect more than 2 million people across the U.S. This hate affects parents, siblings, friends and grandparents. About 29% of trans people face poverty, the percentage rising if you are a trans person of color. Trans people are still stigmatised, discriminated against and harassed, and though that has lessened in the year of 2019, rates have surely gone back up since having Donald Trump in office as president. Only 30% of women’s shelters accept trans women into housing, and due to the bills Trump has passed, 27% of transgender people have been fired, denied a promotion or just not hired due to their identity. The trans community is also at a higher risk of being a victim of hate crimes or being abused by a partner. In the trans community 47% has been sexually assaulted. They are attacked, brutalized and even killed just because they do not conform to what people see as gender norms(“Understanding the Transgender Community,” 2019).

All of this to say, the trans community is an extremely strong and amazing part of the LGBTQ+ community. They should be protected and be allowed to find the happiness cisgender people have so freely in their own bodies, to be allowed to change their bodies and appearances to fit their inner self. Regardless of if you are a random person walking across the street from me or my own sibling, I see you and hold you close in my heart. Keep being strong and fighting for what matters most.

Work Cited

Understanding the Transgender Community. (2019). Retrieved November 20, 2025, from HRC website: https://www.hrc.org/resources/understanding-the-transgender-community

Tracey, L. (2022, May 12). Transgender Legal Battles: A Timeline — JSTOR Daily. Retrieved November 20, 2025, from JSTOR Daily website: https://daily.jstor.org/transgender-legal-battles-a-timeline/

‌Beshay. (2025, February 26). Americans have grown more supportive of restrictions for trans people in recent years. Retrieved November 20, 2025, from Pew Research Center website: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/02/26/americans-have-grown-more-supportive-of-restrictions-for-trans-people-in-recent-years/