The History Of The Transgender Community

The history of the transgender community is not an overly positive history, however to truly understand the community, it is vital to understand the problems that were once faced by advocates of transgender equality. The first instance of the transgender community in the United States media followed Christine Jorgensen's journey as a trans woman. Being a World War II veteran, Jorgensen faced alot of heat from the media and society. Having her life broadcasted through the newspapers and radiostations invited unwarranted dangers into her life. In her letter to her parents, informing them of her transition, Jorgensen mentioned that her case was ``not a too usual case'' reflecting that the problem was ``not as rare as the average person would think.
It [was] more a problem of social taboos and the desire not to speak of the subject'' \cite[28]{White-1951}. At the time, this was the common practice with anything taboo. If anything involving the LGBT was mentioned, it faced violence and ridicule from the outside community. However, these violent acts did not happen without reprocussions.
In 1969, the Stonewall Inn - a gay bar in New York - was raided by police for operating without a liquor license. Outside of the bar, police became hostile towards a lesbian, enraging the crowd surronding the Stonewall Inn. This lead to a six day riot that ultimately lead to ``the founding of groups like the Gay Liberation Front and Gay Activists Alliance'' \cite{Carter-2009}. Though this riot is more commanly associated with the gay community of the LGBTQ+, this moment in history helped to shape confidence in the trans community. It was the drag queens and trans women of this riot that helped pave the way for many other trans children and their futures. Though the late twentith century revolved prodominately around trans women, the existenceof trans men and trans men discrimination was just as real. It was the work of activist Lou Sullivan -a trans male from San Francisco, California- that started the international orginzation FTM in 1986. The development of this orginzation was not an easy feat. Over the course of twenty years, the official offices were burned to the ground eleven times, and various workers of FTM International were beaten, raped and killed
\cite{Wenzel-2007}. A book can be written, filled with the names of transgender men and women who faced harrasement, violence and discrimination. Despite the work of activists across the nation, the transgender people of today still face a great deal of discrimination and violence.

As one of the most discriminated social groups in society, the transgender community faces several fasicts of issues in regards to others social interactions.
Without the influences of society, any area of discrimination that the community faces is non-existant. Due to these social influences, the transgender community is forced to deal with violence and sexualization, based on a lack of understanding in the outside community. In 2016, at least 21 transgender women of color lost their lives due to the massive amounts of hate revolving around the community. In the Human Rights Campaign's (HRC) study of violence towards the trans community, they describe how ``victimes were killed with guns, knives, blunt instruments and bare hands-by lovers, acquaintances, family members, strangers and even groups'' \cite[5]{HRC-2016}. Statistically speaking, the transgender community is the most at-risk community for being assaulted, raped or murdered, and the number only increases as you add classifications. It is one case to be transgender but if the individual is a transgender woman, the likely hood of them being a victim of hate crimes increases. Then it increases even more if they are a transgender woman of color. The violence faced by the transgender community is repulsive when looking at numbers, but that is not the only area in society were the communnity is met with discrimination. With the surge of the recent feminist movements, came groups with the intention to purposefully
exclude transgender women, classifying them as something less than human. One of the most well known exclusionary groups are the Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists. These individuals make it a point to remove transgender individuals from any ounce of equality. One can simply look no further than their website to see their motto. Their goal is to exclude ``trans people from housing, employment, education and accomodation equality as well as local, state, national and United Nations protections'' and preserve the world of cisgender people by ``excluding trans people from fully participating in society as equal citizens'' \cite{something-goes-here}. From a stand point based on humanistic principles, one can see the bigotry behinid their statement in wanting to remove trans peoples rights as citizens, simply because they identify as transgender.