Tracing the modern transgender rights movement from its beginnings in the dress code reform of the 1800s up through Stonewall to today, when Texas A&M has honored trans advocate Phyllis Frye
The transgender movement since the Stonewall Riots, especially in the last 30 years, has gained an almost surprising strength and a proud sense of validation. Its rich history is closely tied to both gay and feminist liberation movements, which seek various forms of gender freedom.
Those desired freedoms have come in many forms such as in regard to the right of equal opportunity employment and the right to control and change one’s own body.
Feminists in the U.S. started initially fighting for gender freedom and equality for women in the mid-1800s, when city populations began to accumulate and gatherings could take place. Dress code reform was an important part of this first wave of feminism, and Amelia Bloomer argued that the long skirts and heavy undergarments of the day were a hindrance and form of bondage.
This firestorm of dress rebellion set off an anti-feminist backlash leading to the passage of laws throughout the country prohibiting the wearing of clothing of the opposite sex. The clear goal of these laws — one of which was passed in Dallas in 1880 — was to maintain distinct categories of men and women. Cross-dressing would not be tolerated.
Transgender liberation and gay liberation are perhaps most intimately bonded today in their common struggle to validate domestic partnerships. FTM (female-to-male) and MTF (male-to-female) transgender marriages continue to frustrate state lawmakers who are inconsistent nationwide as to what constitutes a legitimate heterosexual marriage when one partner has changed their sex.
Gay advocacy organizations have other common interests with transgender organizations, such as employment nondiscrimination, HIV healthcare and hate crimes legislation. But they have not always agreed on how progress should be made. Gay and lesbian organizations have not always been welcoming or supportive of transgender individuals, but relationships have grown more solid since the AIDS epidemic of the early 1990s.
Feminists and transgender advocates have also split on any number of issues surrounding body/identity politics and the use of personal spaces such as bathrooms, prisons and women’s shelters.
What continues today to be of utmost importance to the transgender movement is the right to define one’s own gender identity regardless of body anatomy and to express that identity.
Another issue of importance includes the right to change one’s sex, which is still illegal in four states today.
Transgender history cannot be understood without recognizing that sexologists and other medical professionals of the past have tended to pathologize any gender-variant behavior. Even today, the entry “Gender Identity Disorder” in the American Psychiatric Association’s “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” remains intact and controversial. Dr. Kelley Winters, a GID reform advocate, calls for compassion, saying, “It is time for the medical professions to affirm that difference is not disease.”
The Stonewall rebellion has become an important historical event for transgenders, because transgender individuals fought back against corrupt police injustice. Transgender individuals have historically been a central target for anti-gay sentiment and actions because of gender-variant attributes.
But Stonewall, while considered the most important single event signifying the beginning of the gay movement, was not the first.
In the late 1950s and ‘60s, predating the Stonewall Riots, several smaller riots across the country had broken out in response to police discrimination against gender-variant and gay individuals. Key events, as documented by Susan Stryker, include the riot at Cooper’s Donuts in 1959 in Los Angeles, the Dewey’s Coffeehouse Riot in 1965 in Philadelphia and the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot in 1966 in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood.
These smaller events, alongside other movements of the day, including the anti-war movement and Black Power, were indicative that the time was ripe for a gay and transgender movement to begin, and clearly that movement would not step forward without transgender individuals.
Continue Reading Here to See The Events by Year that shaped Trans History
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