One of the most common misunderstandings is that being transgender is a sexual orientation. It isn't.

A transgender woman who loves men might identify as straight. A transgender man who loves men might identify as gay. A non-binary person might identify as queer.

Because of this difference, the trans experience is unique. While a gay man has historically fought for the right to marry his partner, a trans person has historically fought for the right to simply exist in public—to use a bathroom, update an ID, or access medical care without discrimination.

The common narrative is that the modern LGBTQ rights movement began at the Stonewall Inn in 1969. But what is often sanitized in history books is who threw the first punches and bricks.

The leaders of the Stonewall uprising were not wealthy gay white men; they were transgender women, drag queens, and gender-nonconforming individuals. Marsha P. Johnson, a Black trans woman and self-identified drag queen, and Sylvia Rivera, a Latina trans woman and activist, were at the forefront of the resistance against police brutality.

In the decades following Stonewall, as the gay rights movement pivoted toward respectability politics (seeking acceptance by appearing "normal" to straight society), trans people were frequently sidelined. Rivera was famously booed off stage at a gay rights rally in 1973 when she tried to speak about the imprisonment of trans people. This schism reveals a painful truth: LGBTQ culture was not always a safe haven for the "T."

Nevertheless, the transgender community refused to disappear. They created their own spaces, their own ballroom culture, and their own lexicon—which would later be co-opted by mainstream pop culture.

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