Name: 【TED】Samy Nour Younes: A short history of trans people's long fight for equality (A short history of trans people's long fight for equality | Samy Nour Younes)
Uploaded: 2019-04-30T15:32:02.000Z
Duration: 6 min 15 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Why are transgender people suddenly everywhere?

As a trans activist, I get this question a lot.

Keep in mind, less than one percent of American adults

According to a recent GLAAD survey, about 16 percent of non-trans Americans

claim to know a trans person in real life.

So for the other 84 percent, this may seem like a new topic.

and trans people are part of that legacy.

From central Africa to South America to the Pacific Islands and beyond,

there have been populations who recognize multiple genders,

The hijra of India and Pakistan, for example,

have been cited as far back as 2,000 years ago in the Kama Sutra.

Indigenous American nations each have their own terms,

but most share the umbrella term \"two-spirit.\"

as shamans and healers in their communities,

and it wasn't until the spread of colonialism

that they were taught to think otherwise.

we look for both trans people and trans practices.

Take, for example, the women who presented as men

After the war, most resumed their lives as women,

but some, like Albert Cashier, continued to live as men.

Albert was eventually confined to an asylum

and forced to wear a dress for the rest of his life.

Around 1895, a group of self-described androgynes

Their mission was to unite for defense against the world's bitter persecution.

And in doing that, they became one of the earliest trans support groups.

By the '40s and '50s, medical researchers were starting to study trans medicine,

but they were aided by their trans patients,

like Louise Lawrence, a trans woman who had corresponded extensively

with people who had been arrested for public cross-dressing.

She introduced sexual researchers like Alfred Kinsey

like Virginia Prince, Reed Erickson and the famous Christine Jorgensen,

who made headlines with her very public transition in 1952.

But while white trans suburbanites were forming their own support networks,

many trans people of color had to carve their own path.

Some, like Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, walked in drag balls.

Others were the so-called \"street queens,\"

who were often targeted by police for their gender expression

and found themselves on the forefront of seminal events

This brings us to the riots at Cooper Do-nuts in 1959,

In 1970, Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson,

established STAR: Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries.

Trans people continued to fight for equal treatment under the law,

even as they faced higher rates of discrimination,

unemployment, arrests, and the looming AIDS epidemic.

those in power have sought to disenfranchise trans people

This motion picture still, taken in Berlin in 1933,

to illustrate how the Nazis burned works they considered un-German.

But what's rarely mentioned is that included in this massive pile

are works from the Institute for Sexual Research.

See, I just recapped the trans movement in America,

but Magnus Hirschfeld and his peers in Germany

Magnus Hirschfeld was an early advocate for LGBT people.

He wrote the first book-length account of trans individuals.

He helped them obtain medical services and IDs.

He worked with the Berlin Police Department

So when the Nazi Party burned his library,

it had devastating implications for trans research around the world.

This was a deliberate attempt to erase trans people,

and it was neither the first nor the last.

So whenever people ask me why trans people are suddenly everywhere,

I just want to tell them that we've been here.

along with the countless others that have been buried by time.

Not only were our lives not celebrated, but our struggles have been forgotten

and, yeah, to some people, that makes trans issues seem new.

Today, I meet a lot of people who think that our movement

but I also hear well-intentioned allies telling us all to be patient,

if we acknowledge just how long trans people have been demanding equality.

do something about the trans women of color who are murdered

Do our circumstances seem dire to you yet?

【TED】Samy Nour Younes: A short history of trans people's long fight for equality (A short history of trans people's long fight for equality | Samy Nour Younes)