why are transgender people suddenly
everywhere as a trans activist I get
this question a lot
keep in mind less than one percent of
American adults openly identify as trans
according to a recent GLAAD survey about
16 percent of non trans Americans claim
to know a trans person in real life so
for the other 84 percent this may seem
like a new topic but trans people are
not new gender variance is older than
you think and trans people are part of
that legacy from Central Africa to South
America to the Pacific Islands and
beyond there been populations who
recognized multiple genders and they go
way back
the hijra of India and Pakistan for
example have been cited as far back as
2,000 years ago in the kama sutra
indigenous american nations each have
their own terms but most share the
umbrella term two-spirit they saw gender
variant people as shamans and healers in
their communities and it wasn't until
the spread of colonialism that they were
taught to think otherwise now in
researching trans history we look for
both trans people and trans practices
take for example the women who presented
as men so they could fight in the u.s.
civil war after the war most resumed
their lives as women but some like
Albert cashier continued to live as men
Albert was eventually confined to an
asylum and forced to wear a dress for
the rest of his life around 1895 a group
of self-described androgens formed the
circle hermaphrodites their mission was
to unite for defence against the world's
bitter persecution and in doing that
they became one of the earliest trans
support groups by the 40s and 50s
medical researchers were starting to
study trans medicine but they were aided
by their trans patients like Louise
Lawrence a trans woman who had
corresponded extensively with people who
had been arrested for public
cross-dressing she introduced sexual
researchers like Alfred Kinsey to a
massive trans network
other early figures would follow like
Virginia prints Reid Erickson and the
famous Christine Jorgensen who made
headlines with her very public
transition in 1952 but while white trans
suburban nights were forming their own
support networks many trans people of
color had to carve their own path
some like miss major Griffin Gracie
walked in drag balls others were the so
called Street Queens who were often
targeted by police for their gender
expression and found themselves on the
forefront of seminal events in the LGBTQ
rights movement this brings us to the
riots at Cooper's Donuts in 1959
Compton's cafeteria in 1966 and the
famous Stonewall Inn in 1969 in 1970
Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P Johnson to
the veterans of Stonewall established
star Street transvestite action
revolutionaries trans people continued
to fight for equal treatment under the
law even as they faced higher rates of
discrimination unemployment arrests and
the looming AIDS epidemic for as long as
we've been around those in power have
sought to disenfranchise trans people
for daring to live lives that are ours
this motion picture still taken in
Berlin in 1933 is sometimes used in
history textbooks to illustrate how the
Nazis burned works they considered on
German but what's rarely mentioned is
that included in this massive pile are
works from the Institute for sexual
research see I just recap the trans
movement in America but Magnus
Hirschfeld and his peers in Germany had
us beat by a few decades Magnus
Hirschfeld was an early advocate for
LGBT people he wrote the first book
length account of trans individuals he
helps them obtain medical services and
ID's he worked with the Berlin Police
Department to end discrimination of LGBT
people and he hired them at the
Institute so when the Nazi Party burned
his library it had devastating
implications for trans research around
the world this was a deliberate attempt
to erase trans people and it was neither
the first nor the last so whenever
people ask me why trans people are
suddenly everywhere I just want to tell
them that we've been here
these stories have to be told along with
the countless others that have been
buried by time not only where our lives
not celebrated but our struggles have
been forgotten and yeah to some people
that makes trans issues seem new today I
meet a lot of people who think that our
movement is just a phase that will pass
but I also hear well-intentioned allies
telling us all to be patient because our
movement is still new imagine how the
conversation would shift if we
acknowledge just how long trans people
have been demanding equality are we
still overreacting should we continue to
wait or should we for example do
something about the trans women of color
who are murdered and whose killers never
see justice to our circumstances seem
dire to you yet finally I want other
trans people to realize they're not
alone I grew up thinking my identity was
an anomaly that would die with me people
drilled this idea of other nests into my
mind and I bought it cuz I didn't know
anyone else like me maybe if I had known
my ancestors sooner it wouldn't have
taken me so long to find a source of
pride in my identity and in my community
because I belonged to an amazing vibrant
community of people let uplift each
other even when others won't but take
care of each other even when we're
struggling but somehow despite it all
still find cause to celebrate each other
to love each other to look one another
in the eyes and say you are not alone
you have us and we're not going anywhere
thank you
[Applause]