It's literally true.
"
Transgender and gender non-conforming individuals were central to the emergence of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement, particularly in its early, most radical phases. Long before the term "transgender" became widely used, trans people were organizing, advocating, and resisting police violence alongside other queer communities.
The
1969 Stonewall Riots, often cited as the catalyst for the modern gay rights movement, were led in large part by
trans women of color, including Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, and Miss Major Griffin-Gracy. These figures were not peripheral but
frontline combatants during the uprising against police raids at the Stonewall Inn. Their resistance was rooted in years of systemic harassment, criminalization, and exclusion from mainstream society."
...
Key Trans Leaders in the Gay Rights Movement
Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson co-founded the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) in 1970, one of the first organizations dedicated to protecting homeless transgender youth and sex workers—populations disproportionately affected by poverty and violence. STAR provided housing and advocacy, highlighting the intersectional nature of their activism long before the term became common.
Despite their pivotal roles,
trans leaders were often excluded from leadership positions in mainstream gay rights organizations. Rivera famously delivered her “
Y’all Better Quiet Down” speech at the 1973 Christopher Street Liberation Day Rally, where she was booed for criticizing the movement’s abandonment of trans, poor, and incarcerated people.
...
Kicked any good ladders lately,
@CLAX1911? Now that you've climbed them, who needs them, right?
I never needed the right to demand other people pretend I'm the opposite sex. Nobody should have ever had that right.
You needed the right to exist in society without being stoned to death, denied employment, housing, and equal civil rights. Trans people fought for you to have them. You're just a Dave Rubin-esque 'Pick Me'. They'll never accept you.