A short history of trans people's long fight for equality

Transgender activist and TED Resident Samy Nour Younes shares the remarkable, centuries-old history of the trans community, filled with courageous stories, inspiring triumphs -- and a fight for civil rights that's been raging for a long time. "Imagine how the conversation would shift if we acknowledge just how long trans people have been demanding equality," he says.

Why are transgender people
suddenly everywhere?

(Laughter)

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 have been populations
who recognize 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 US 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.

(Sighs)

Around 1895, a group
of self-described androgynes

formed the Cercle Hermaphroditos.

Their mission was to unite for defense
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 Prince, Reed Erickson
and the famous Christine Jorgensen,

who made headlines with
her very public transition in 1952.

But while white trans suburbanites
were forming their own support networks,

many trans people of color
had to carve their own path.

Some, like Miss Major Griffin-Gracy,
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 LGBT rights movement.

This brings us to the riots
at Cooper Do-nuts in 1959,

Compton's Cafeteria in 1966

and the famous Stonewall Inn in 1969.

In 1970, Sylvia Rivera
and Marsha P. Johnson,

two 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 un-German.

But what's rarely mentioned
is that included in this massive pile

are works from the Institute
for Sexual Research.

See, I just recapped
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 helped them obtain
medical services and IDs.

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 were 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?

Do our circumstances seem dire to you yet?

(Sighs)

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 otherness into my mind,

and I bought it because 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 belong to an amazing,
vibrant community of people

that uplift each other
even when others won't,

that take care of each other
even when we are struggling,

that 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)