TRANS/gressive: How Transgender Activists Took on Gay Rights, Feminism, the Media & Congress... and Won!

In the early 1990s, no one talked about transgender people, and no one knew one. We were not on TV or in movies. What formed the visible part of the transcommunity - overwhelmingly white, urban, and middle class - was also overwhelmingly focused on conferences, surgery or hormones and cisgender acceptance.

This was still a determinedly non-political population, often in defensive crouch because it was also constantly under attack by the media, police, local legislatures, feminists and even L...