08/12/2026
TRANSGENDER HISTORY MONTH
In August of 1966, a riot broke out in Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco in response to harassment and police brutality towards trans people and drag queens. Several trans women and drag queens would gather at the cafeteria only for employees to call the police on them for the simple crime of existing. The employees feared that they would lose customers if they allowed trans people to continue gathering there. They harassed and intimidated them until they decided to call the police and have one trans woman arrested. In response, the trans woman resisted arrest by throwing coffee at the police officer. This happened three years before the Stonewall riot. Times were different then, but every day I’m seeing things have not changed for the better.
60 years later and the same thing happens: if a trans woman threw coffee into a cop’s face, she would be killed, or beaten, ridiculed online, jailed and used as an example. Her humanity and life would be erased from history for the sake of state violence, without a question about why she threw the coffee. Trans people are seen as a threat because we question the wolfish consensus that healthcare is a privilege instead of a right. If trans people demand access to basic healthcare and the means of living, then quote-”regular people” might get the same idea, and if "regular people" saw us as "one of them," well, that is a huge inconvenience in an economic state where resources are divvied up by race, gender, s*x, and ability, even the “most agreeable” of us are seen as aggressive, entitled, and mad for demanding our rights.
Trans women are being labeled as hysterical for sounding the alarms on trans genocide while it is happening to them firsthand. Even I, a trans man, have been silenced and obscured trying to raise awareness on issues of injustice and ignored when lifting up the voices of my trans sisters.
As Ms. Rachel said recently, “Any opportunities I lose because of my advocacy are not ones I want.”
We must come together and fight for trans people before it’s too late. If we continue at this rate, if we continue being complacent, there will be nothing left of us. Not even written history. This administration has already done everything in its power to erase trans people from important databases, including destroying any research benefiting our health and safety. We have seen this before in N**i Germany. Where is the outrage now?
I urge you to please use any platforms you may have to lift the voices of transgender people and to shed light on the atrocities happening to us. Ask the trans people in your life directly what you can do to support them. There is so much more to being an ally to trans people than just respecting our name and pronouns. We should not expect our trans sisters to continue fighting at the front of the line alone. It should be our cis allies at the front of the line. Why? Because a trans woman, as we have seen happen time and time again, will be arrested, thrown into a men’s prison, forcibly detransitioned, and r***d until there is nothing left of her. And to my trans siblings, please don’t give up the fight. I know it’s exhausting, it hurts, and you’re tired. Sometimes it’s great, even healthy, to take a break and pretend everything’s fine. But one day we will not be given that luxury if we don’t do something now. The best way we can honor Transgender History Month is by making sure we don’t become nothing more than a thing of the past.
