Trans People Have Always Existed and Always Will

Editor’s note: This story is part of ‘Trans Bay: A History of San Francisco’s Gender-Diverse Community.’ From June 9–19, we’re publishing stories about transgender artists and activists who shaped culture from the 1890s to today.

The White House would have us believe that respecting transgender people’s right to exist is a form of “gender ideology extremism.” President Trump’s January executive order recognizes only “two sexes, male and female,” willfully ignoring well-established science that biological sex doesn’t neatly fit into a rigid binary, and is a lot more complicated than just chromosomes.

How we express gender heavily depends on social context, and history backs this up. From pre-colonial California to India to Samoa, many cultures have had third-gender and gender-variant people; evidence of gender diversity goes back thousands of years, as far back as the Copper Age of 2500 B.C.

The two-week KQED series Trans Bay: A History of San Francisco’s Gender-Diverse Community has a simple goal: to affirm trans people’s place in society and culture. From June 9–19, we’ll publish 10 stories spotlighting transgender artists and activists in the Bay Area, from the 1890s to today.

Even when there was no language yet for the trans experience, no internet and no social support — when dressing in the clothing of the “wrong” sex could land someone in jail, where they’d face humiliation and abuse — brave individuals insisted on living as their true selves.

Consider Jack Bee Garland, a trailblazing trans man in San Francisco who helped the victims of the 1906 earthquake and, as Rae Alexandra recounts in her story, received a medal for his service as a nurse during the Spanish-American war. Another San Francisco trans man, Lou Sullivan, worked to resurface the details of Garland’s life and, in 1990, published his definitive biography, From Female to Male: The Life of Jack Bee Garland.

The year Garland died, 1936, brought the opening of Finocchio’s, a North Beach nightclub dedicated to drag performances. The club quickly became a place where trans women could work, even under the outdated pretense of “female impersonation” and comedy for straight audiences at a time when crossdressing was outlawed. Ugur Dursun shows how Finocchio’s offered a lifeline in her history of the venue, which continued to entertain San Franciscans and curious visitors until its closure in 1999.

A watershed moment for trans rights came on a summer night in 1966, when a group of trans women, drag queens and sex workers rioted against police harassment in the Tenderloin. The Compton’s Cafeteria riot signified a shift in the LGBTQ+ rights movement, kindling its flame right here in San Francisco — nearly three full years before the Stonewall riots in New York City. Cartoonist Justin Hall’s illustrated retelling of the night shows the bravery and resilience of a community standing up to oppression with a united front.

Though trans people had risked their lives fighting for LGBTQ+ rights, in the 1970s gay and lesbian activists sought to oust them from the movement. As Veronica Esposito explains, as the gay community sought mainstream acceptance, it betrayed its trans siblings by banning trans people from San Francisco Pride and booing Stonewall survivor Sylvia Rivera off a New York stage.

Meanwhile, some feminists wanted to kick trans women out of women’s spaces, ostensibly in the name of liberation. Nastia Voynovskaya interviews Sandy Stone, an 88-year-old audio engineer and professor who survived a coordinated harassment campaign that sought to exile her from the women’s music scene. Her story demonstrates how trans-exclusionary radical feminists created a playbook that conservative politicians and judges would embrace 50 years later to power a tidal wave of anti-trans legislation.

Despite exclusion within and outside the queer community, trans people have always found ways to form life-saving networks of support. Author Caro De Robertis collected oral histories from elders such as Ms. Billie Cooper, who has fought for civil rights since the Vietnam War; Ms. Billie’s mentor is Stonewall survivor and trans icon Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, who has spent her life advocating alongside incarcerated trans women. You’ll find these testimonies in an excerpt from Caro’s new book, So Many Stars: An Oral History of Trans, Nonbinary, Genderqueer and Two-Spirit People of Color.

As the AIDS epidemic raged on in the ’80s and ’90s, artists and activists like singer Teresita La Campesina and drag performers Adela Vázquez and Hector León — aka La Condonera — used their creativity to break down shame and open conversations about sexual safety in the Mission District. Carlos Cabrera-Lomelí illuminates their work with the organization Proyecto ContraSIDA Por Vida, a model for culturally informed outreach that still shapes public health efforts in the Latinx community today.

Meanwhile, Sarah Hotchkiss helps us remember Christopher Lee, the rebellious filmmaker who created an essential platform for trans stories for and by the community: the San Francisco Transgender Film Festival. Finally, Shannon Faulise interviews the organizers of San Francisco’s Two-Spirit Powwow, the largest Indigiqueer gathering in the country. As today’s Native people define Two-Spirit identity for themselves, they reclaim a longstanding history of gender diversity in the Americas.

It’s our wish that documenting these histories and amplifying trans voices can provide hope during an otherwise somber Pride month, marked by policies that undermine the personal freedoms of not only trans and queer people, but all Americans.

In moments like this, it is crucial to reflect on the perseverance of our LGBTQ+ elders and learn from their struggles. Trans and queer people have existed for thousands of years; ironically, the conservative extremist ideology that antagonizes our community is a recent development. LGBTQ+ Americans are asking to be respected and treated equally, while a serious epidemic of hatred and scorn, encouraged by conservative leaders, denies a reality of the human experience.

As you’ll read over the next two weeks, generations of trans heroes fought for a more tolerant world every day by showing up and showing out. Their stories show the effort needed to make progress towards liberation. Whether you’re a part of the LGBTQ+ community or an ally, may these stories be the fuel you need to keep striving towards a kinder, more accepting world.