Many often disregard the fact that transgender people, whether they were “out” or not, have existed long since the term was popularized. Today, about 1.4 million adults in the United States identify as transgender, and there have been many transgender figures in history that defied gender norms before the term “transgender” even existed.

The beginnings of non-binary and transgender indivuduals in American history have roots in Native American culture. Native American communities do not have rigid gender-roles as the patriarchal society of early America did, which allowed for terms describing non-binary, transgender, and genderless people in Native culture to arise. In the beginnings of the first American colonies in 1627 lived the first documented intersex person in the New World, Thomas(ine) Hall. Hall was born and raised as a female, but began presenting in a more masculine fashion in order to join the military in England and France after observing the patriarchal aristocracy in England at the time. Hall continued to present androgynously until they were physically examined and were confirmed to have male and female anatomy, after which they were taken to court and, from then on, no longer had their name in any official records. Another important figure in trans American history is the Public Universal Friend, a non-binary and non-gender conforming preacher who lived in New England in the late 1700’s. They did not partake in the use of gendered pronouns or use of their name assigned at birth. The Friend was a major figure in the history of gender non-conforming people in the United States as well as in America post-First Great Awakening as they claimed to live only to serve God.

Stories of the first registered transgender people in America do not transcend the fact that gender non-conforming people have existed since the beginnings of society and in many different cultures, but they provide basis to infer that many early non-binary people were affected by the patriarchal society of 16th and 17th century England and, by proxy, the first colonies. In order to understand how the transgender rights movement began, it is crucial to acknowledge how the understanding of transgender people has developed over time. The term “transexual” was first used in 1923 by German physician Magnus Herschfeld to describe someone assigned a sex at birth who undergoes medical transition. Once the term started being used in the medical community, the first instance of hormone therapy was led by Harry Benjamin, a physician in San Francisco, who doubted the effectiveness of psychotherapy and instead advocated for hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgery.

In the 1990’s and early 2000’s, many more transgender organizations were founded to educate the general public such as The National Transgender Advocacy Coalition and the National Center for Transgender Equality. Political figures in the early 2000’s and 2010’s began the debate about all-gender bathrooms, which is when the “Bathroom Myth” started making headlines. People against all-gender bathrooms used the claim that allowing bathroom non-discrimination bills to be passed would put women at risk for sexual assault. Despite media coverage in recent years, all-gender bathrooms are still few and far between in the environments that need them.