For the trans community, this is not an abstract debate. When a trans woman is murdered—disproportionately Black and Latina trans women—her death is often ignored by police and media. When a trans teen is denied puberty blockers, the suicide risk skyrockets. The "T" in LGBTQ+ is not a theoretical identity; it is a matter of life and death. The trans community is not a "new" phenomenon. Two-spirit people have existed in Indigenous cultures for millennia. The hijra of South Asia have been recognized for centuries. The muxe of Zapotec culture in Oaxaca. What is new is the mainstream visibility and the accelerating pace of self-determination.
For years, the mainstream gay movement—seeking respectability and assimilation—pushed these figures aside. Rivera was booed off stage at a 1973 Gay Pride rally when she tried to speak about the imprisonment of trans people and drag queens. The mainstream gay movement of the 70s and 80s often saw trans people and gender-nonconforming people as a "liability" to their fight for marriage and military service.
Originating in Harlem in the 1960s-80s, the ballroom scene was a Black and Latinx queer and trans refuge from racism and homophobia. Trans women were legendary figures in "realness" categories—walking the runway to achieve the illusion of cisgender straight womanhood. This culture gave us voguing (popularized by Madonna), the entire lexicon of "reading" and "shade," and a kinship structure of "houses" (family units led by a "mother"). Without trans women like Pepper LaBeija and Angie Xtravaganza, there is no Paris is Burning . funny shemale cock
Greer Lankton's haunting doll sculptures, Cassils's physically demanding performance art, and Tourmaline's filmic reclamations of Black trans history.
The most iconic flashpoint is the Stonewall Inn uprising of June 28, 1969. While history long centered the figures of gay white men like Marsha P. Johnson (a self-identified drag queen, gay, and trans woman) and Sylvia Rivera (a Latina gay and trans woman), recent scholarship has rightfully restored their centrality. These were not merely "drag queens" who happened to be there. They were homeless, sex-working, gender-nonconforming individuals for whom the bar was one of the few places they could exist. When police raided Stonewall, it was Johnson and Rivera who resisted most fiercely. Rivera famously shouted, "You’ve been treating us like shit all these years? Now it's our turn!" For the trans community, this is not an abstract debate
Yet, there is also a "LGB without the T" movement—a small but vocal minority that argues for dropping the "T" in hopes of achieving assimilation. These groups are largely rejected by mainstream LGBTQ+ organizations, but their existence highlights a fault line.
At the same time, the trans community relies on the coalitional power of the LGBTQ+ movement for legal protections, social acceptance, and mutual care. When a trans child is bullied, it is often a gay-straight alliance club that offers refuge. When a trans adult needs a lawyer, it is often an LGBTQ+ legal fund that steps in. The "T" in LGBTQ+ is not a theoretical
The relationship is one of interdependence—a chosen family forged not by blood, but by a shared understanding of what it means to be told you are wrong for existing, and to insist, together, that you are exactly right. The future of both the transgender community and LGBTQ+ culture depends on honoring that bond: the radical, messy, beautiful, and enduring truth that our liberations are bound to one another.