Gender Roles In The Transgender Community

Gender has often been a source of conflict in this society. Over the past century, great strides to bring the gap between men and women closer have been made but there is still one topic that hasn't been as openly discussed as much as the struggles of women. What about those who do not conform to the gender that they were assigned at birth? This essay will be discussing the struggles that the transgender community face a long with the efforts that advocats make in order to bring equal rights.

Those who belong in the transgender community have faced a constant battle with gaining acceptance from society. Human rights are continuously being abused for these people, for instance it is illegal to belong anywhere in the LGBT+ community (lesbian,

Trans issues had been made public knowledge by 1952 because of the highly publicised transition of Christine Jorgensen, a foundation to support gay and transgender people was created in 1964 by Reed Erickson which raised millions of dollars for the community, 1966 held the Compton Cafeteria riots, 1969 saw the Stonewall riots, 1972 was the year that the first country, Sweden, legalised sex reassignment surgery, tennis player Renee Richards won her case to be able to play tennis as a woman in 1977, a trangender teen, Brandon Teena, in Nebraska was murdered in 1993, in Massechusetts, Rita Hester was murdered in 1998, soldier Barry Winchell was murdered by fellow soldiers after they discovered he was dating a trans woman, 1999 held the first transgender day of rememberance, transgender law center was founded in 2002 to change laws and policies in order to allow trans people to have more rights, trans teen was murdered in Colorado in 2008, marking the first time in America that a murderer was convicted of a hate crime to a transgendered person and this year also saw the first openly trans mayor in the United States (Townsend, 2012). The history of transgender people is so rich with successes and discriminations that it is hard to condense. Society has progressed incredibly but there is still a long way to go before this community will finally

These events will be Dewey's coffee shop protests, Compton's cafeteria riots and the Stonewall riots. The Dewey's coffee shop sit-in happened in 1965, during the civil rights movement in America. This was an act to support both the African-American community along with the LGBT community. It was popular place for LGBT African-Americans to hang out but after a while the owners became distasteful of these people and began to refuse service to those who wore clothing that did not conform to the gender they had been given at birth. Due to this, on April 25th, more than 150 people wearing the clothing that had been getting people turned away showed up to the establishment. All were turned away but three teenagers refused to leave, even after being refused service. These three teens were later arrested, along with an African-American gay activist who was with them. Over the next week, people from both the LGBT and African-American community began picketing outside of the cafe. On May 2nd there was another sit in held and although the police were called, no arrests were made. After this, Dewey's promised they will stop the discriminatory denial of service. (Roberts,