As Transgender Day of Visibility was celebrated on March 31, it was a time to honor and recognize the pioneering individuals who have paved the way for the transgender community. From lawmakers to entertainers, activists to sportspeople, the following 12 trailblazers have broken barriers, overcome hardships, and fought tirelessly for equality, acceptance and freedom for all.
Reed Erickson (1917-1992) was a mechanical engineer, businessman, and philanthropist who founded the nonprofit Erickson Educational Foundation in 1964. Throughout his life, he provided financial support to advocacy organizations and researchers who worked with the transgender community.
Christine Jorgensen (1926-1989) was the first American woman to publicly announce her gender-affirming surgery. Following reports of her transition in the 1950s, she embraced fame and acted as a spokesperson for transgender people, gave countless television interviews, performed in nightclubs, wrote books, and lectured on college campuses.
Renée Richards (Born 1934) was a professional tennis player who challenged officials' efforts to ban her from competing in the 1976 US Open after they learned she was assigned male at birth. Richards challenged the policy, and the New York Supreme Court ruled in her favor, allowing her to compete. She retired from tennis at age 47 and continued her ophthalmology practice, coaching Martina Navratilova to two wins at Wimbledon.
Miss Major Griffin-Gracy (Born 1940) is a Black transgender woman and longtime activist who joined the Trans Gender Variant and Intersex Justice Project in 2005 to advocate for incarcerated trans women. Miss Major has spoken out against the prison system, which she says contributes to the incarceration of transgender individuals, particularly trans people of color and those with low incomes.
Marsha P. Johnson (1945-1992) was an outspoken transgender rights activist and is reported to be one of the participants in the historic Stonewall uprising of 1969. Along with fellow trans activist Sylvia Rivera, Johnson helped form Street Transgender Action Revolutionaries (STAR), a radical political organization that provided housing and other forms of support to homeless queer youth and sex workers in Manhattan.
Sylvia Rivera (1951-2002), known as “The Rosa Parks of the Modern Transgender Movement,” was involved in both the Young Lords and the Black Panthers, radical Puerto Rican and Black activist groups. Rivera is perhaps most well known for her transgender advocacy within a gay rights movement that largely shunned trans people and for her reported role in the Stonewall uprising.
Dr. Rachel Levine (Born 1957) became one of the highest-ranking openly transgender officials in the US in 2015 when Pennsylvania’s Senate confirmed her as the state’s physician general. In 2021, she rose even higher, becoming the first Senate-confirmed transgender federal official in the country’s history.
Andrea Jenkins (Born 1961) made history in November 2017 by becoming the first openly transgender Black woman elected to public office in the US. Jenkins is a published poet and an oral historian at the University of Minnesota. Jenkins made history again in January 2022, when she was elected as the first transgender official in the US to lead a city council.
Stephanie Byers (Born 1963) became the first transgender person elected to office in Kansas and the first trans Native American elected in the United States when she won a seat in the Republican-majority state House in November 2020.
Elliot Page (Born 1987) came out as transgender in December 2021, announcing that his pronouns are “he” and “they.” Page became one of the most visible and best-known transmasculine people in the world.
Maia Kobabe, a nonbinary author, wrote the award-winning memoir "Gender Queer," which is one of the most banned books in the U.S. The fully illustrated memoir tells Kobabe's story from adolescence to adulthood and grapples with the hardships of coming out, the confusion of adolescent crushes, and the trauma of being nonbinary in a society that largely sees gender as limited to two categories.
MJ Rodriguez became the first transgender performer to pick up an Emmy nomination in a lead acting category in 2021 for her portrayal of Blanca Rodriguez on FX’s ballroom culture period drama "Pose." The following year, Rodriguez made history once again as the first trans performer to win a Golden Globe.
These 12 trailblazers are just some of the many