History of the Trans Movement: From the Stonewall Riots to Today

The history of trans people does not begin with the Stonewall riots, nor with the pioneers of twentieth-century sexology. People with a gender identity that does not conform to binary standards have existed in every era and in every culture. However, it is in the 20th century that a true organized trans movement structured itself, capable of claiming rights, visibility, and dignity. This entry retraces the fundamental milestones of that history, from the Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin to contemporary challenges.

Before Stonewall: Magnus Hirschfeld and the First Institute

The Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (1919-1933)

The conventional starting point of the medical and political history of trans people is Berlin, in the Weimar Republic. On July 6, 1919, the German physician and sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld inaugurated the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute for Sexual Science), the first institution in the world dedicated to the scientific study of human sexuality and, in particular, to understanding and assisting transgender people [1][2].

In 1910, Hirschfeld had coined the term transvestit (transvestite), used at the time to describe what we would today define as a transgender identity [2]. The Institute was not limited to research: it offered medical services, psychological counseling, sex education, and, revolutionary for the time, shelter and work to trans people who would otherwise have remained marginalized [1]. Hirschfeld believed that trans people were acting in accordance with their true nature and that science should provide the means for medical transition.

Among the Institute’s patients was Lili Elbe (1882-1931), a Danish painter considered one of the first people to undergo gender-affirming surgeries, performed by gynecologist Kurt Warnekros in Dresden in 1930. Elbe died of postoperative complications the following year, but her story has become a symbol of that early chapter of trans history.

The Nazi Destruction

On May 6, 1933, squads of Nazi students raided the Institute. Over 20,000 books and documents were looted and burned in a public bonfire, one of the most famous of the regime’s cultural destruction campaign [1]. The library included rare copies and unique materials that had helped build a historiography of gender-nonconforming people. Magnus Hirschfeld, who was abroad at the time, never returned to Germany and died in exile in Nice in 1935 [2]. His work was largely forgotten for decades.

Christine Jorgensen and Media Visibility

Another founding moment of trans history precedes Stonewall by nearly twenty years. In 1952, the American Christine Jorgensen (1926-1989) became the first transgender person to gain widespread public notoriety in the United States after undergoing a series of surgeries in Copenhagen. The New York Daily News ran the front-page headline “Ex-GI Becomes Blonde Beauty,” generating unprecedented media attention. Jorgensen later became an actress, singer, and activist, helping to bring the issue of gender identity into the American public debate.

Stonewall and Marsha P. Johnson

The 1969 Riots

The Stonewall riots represent a watershed in the history of LGBTQ+ rights. On the night between June 27 and 28, 1969, the New York police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village [3]. Police raids on establishments frequented by the queer community were commonplace, but that night the patrons fought back. The resistance lasted six days and turned into an uprising that marked the birth of the modern LGBTQ+ liberation movement [3].

Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera

Among the most important figures of the riots stand out Marsha P. Johnson (1945-1992) and Sylvia Rivera (1951-2002), two trans women of color whose contributions were long undervalued by the mainstream historiography of the movement [3][5].

Marsha P. Johnson, born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, identified as a drag queen and a gay liberation activist [5]. The “P.” in her name stood for “Pay It No Mind,” the response she gave to anyone who asked about her gender. According to her own testimony, she arrived at the Stonewall Inn around 2 a.m. when “the place was already on fire and the raid was already underway” [5].

Sylvia Rivera, born in the Bronx to a Puerto Rican and Venezuelan family, was only 17 years old during the riots [3]. In a 2001 interview, Rivera recounted that she didn’t throw the first Molotov cocktail at the police, as a persistent myth claims, but that she threw the second. For six consecutive nights, she refused to go home or sleep, declaring: “I’m not missing a minute of this—it’s the revolution!”

STAR: The First Trans Shelter

In 1970, Johnson and Rivera founded STAR (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries), an organization that opened STAR House in Manhattan’s East Village [4]. Operational from November 1970 to July 1971, STAR House provided food and shelter to homeless transgender youth. It was the first shelter for LGBTQ+ youth in North America, the first organization led by trans women of color in the United States, and the first trans sex worker union [4].

STAR drew inspiration from both gay rights advocacy groups like the Gay Activists Alliance and the Gay Liberation Front, and revolutionary organizations like the Black Panthers [4]. However, Johnson and Rivera had to clash with the exclusion of trans people from the mainstream gay movement, which was dominated by cisgender white men who often refused to recognize the role of transgender people, especially those of color, in the Stonewall riots [3].

The 1970s-80s: First Laws and Visibility

Sweden, a Pioneer in Trans Rights (1972)

In 1972, Sweden became the first country in the world to allow transgender people to legally change their gender marker after sex reassignment surgery [12]. The law also guaranteed free access to hormone therapy. However, the legislation imposed restrictive conditions: the person had to be unmarried, a Swedish citizen, and sterile. The mandatory sterilization requirement was only removed in 2013, and Sweden only declassified being transgender as an illness in 2017 [12].

Italy and Law 164 of 1982

Italy was among the first European countries to adopt specific legislation. Law 164 was promulgated on April 14, 1982, signed by President Sandro Pertini, and published in the Official Gazette on the 19th of the same month [6]. Bearing “Rules regarding the rectification of gender attribution,” the law recognized a long-denied dignity for trans people and put an end to a legal limbo in which there was a complete lack of any legal instrument to change one’s documents [6].

The legislative initiative was born in October 1979, when militants of FUORI (Italian Revolutionary Homosexual Unitary Front) Enzo Cucco and Enzo Francone drafted a first bill following a ruling by the Constitutional Court on July 12 of that year [7]. However, the decisive intervention to unblock the parliamentary process came from the nascent organized trans movement.

In its original form, Law 164 subordinated legal gender recognition to surgical intervention. Only in 2015, with Court of Cassation ruling no. 15138 and Constitutional Court ruling no. 221, was it established that legal recognition was possible even without surgery, acknowledging the individual’s right to self-determination.

The Movement in Italy

MIT: From 1979 to Today

MIT (initially Movimento Italiano Transessuale, since 2017 Movimento Identità Trans) was founded in Bologna in 1979 and is the oldest association for the rights of trans people in Italy and one of the first in the world [8]. Its founding was due to the determination of activists like Pina Bonanno from Catania, who, on the advice of artist Marzia Siclari, wrote to Marco Pannella to interest him in the cause of trans rights [7].

In the spring of 1980, MIT formally constituted itself and played a decisive role in the campaign for the approval of Law 164 [7][8]. The association’s demonstrations took place in front of Montecitorio (the Italian Parliament) and in various Italian cities. On July 4, 1980, in Milan, what is considered the first public protest for trans rights in Italy was held [15].

Marcella Di Folco: An Icon of the Movement

Among the key figures of the Italian trans movement stands out Marcella Di Folco (1943-2010), activist, actress, and politician [14]. Born in Rome, she graduated from high school and caught the attention of director Federico Fellini, who involved her in several films including Fellini Satyricon (1969), Roma (1972), and City of Women (1980) [14]. She also collaborated with Roberto Rossellini, Dino Risi, and Bruno Corbucci.

From 1988, Di Folco served as president of MIT [14]. In 1994, she founded a gender identity counseling clinic in Bologna, the first in the world run by transgender people in collaboration with institutions and healthcare professionals. In 1995, she was elected city councilor of Bologna with the Green Party, becoming the world’s first openly trans woman to hold a public political office [14].

Her commitment helped shift the public perception of trans people in Italy, moving them from the social margins to active political participation. The association has continued its work after her passing, redefining itself in 2017 as the “Trans Identity Movement” (Movimento Identità Trans) to embrace the plurality and breadth of experiences related to gender variance [8].

The 2000s: Depathologization and New Identities

The DSM-5 (2013): From “Disorder” to “Dysphoria”

For decades, international medical classifications treated transgender identity as a mental pathology. A first, significant change occurred in 2013 with the publication of the DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) by the American Psychiatric Association [11]. The diagnosis of “gender identity disorder” was eliminated and replaced with “gender dysphoria” [11].

The change in terminology was not merely cosmetic: the shift in emphasis from an identity condition to the distress potentially associated with it marked a step toward depathologization. The DSM-5 explicitly established that “gender non-conformity is not in itself a mental disorder” [11]. However, the diagnosis remained within the psychiatric manual, and many activists advocated for a complete removal of trans diagnostic categories.

The choice to maintain a diagnosis was also pragmatic: without a recognized medical classification, access to care and insurance coverage for gender-affirming therapies risked falling away, especially in healthcare systems based on private insurance.

The ICD-11 (2019): Out of the Mental Disorders Chapter

The most significant step in depathologization arrived on May 25, 2019, when the World Health Assembly adopted the ICD-11 (International Classification of Diseases, Eleventh Revision) of the World Health Organization [9][13]. Diagnoses associated with transgender people were officially removed from the chapter on mental and behavioral disorders.

The ICD-11 replaced the term “transsexualism” with the new concept of “gender incongruence,” relocating it to the chapter related to sexual health rather than mental disorders [9]. Specifically, the obsolete diagnostic categories of the ICD-10, such as “transsexualism” and “gender identity disorder of childhood,” were replaced by “gender incongruence of adolescence and adulthood” and “gender incongruence of childhood” [9].

As stated by the WHO, the change was motivated by “a better understanding that this was not actually a mental health condition” [9]. The inclusion of gender incongruence in the ICD-11, albeit outside the psychiatric chapter, was designed to ensure that trans people retained access to gender-affirming healthcare and adequate insurance coverage [10].

Non-binary Identities and the Expansion of Language

Parallel to medical depathologization, the 2000s and 2010s saw a significant expansion of the language and identity categories related to gender. The term non-binary has become established to describe people who do not identify exclusively within the categories of man or woman.

In the linguistic sphere, the debate has focused on the adoption of neutral or inclusive pronouns. In English, the use of the singular pronoun “they/them” in a non-binary capacity spread starting in the early 2010s, despite having roots in English literature dating back to the 14th century. In Italian, the debate has taken its own unique forms, with the experimentation of alternative gender-neutral endings such as the schwa (ə) and the asterisk (*), solutions that remain a topic of discussion among linguists, activists, and institutions.

Today: Backlash and New Challenges

The Anti-Trans Legislative Wave

Starting in the early 2020s, the trans movement has found itself facing a significant conservative backlash, particularly intense in the United States. In 2023, over 500 bills aimed at limiting the rights of trans people were introduced in American state legislatures, with measures concerning access to medical care, changing identity documents, the use of public restrooms, sports participation, and freedom of expression. In 2024, the number of proposals rose to 586, and in the first months of 2025 alone, over 850 anti-LGBTQ+ bills were tracked.

In January 2025, a presidential executive order redefined the federal understanding of gender by recognizing only the categories of male and female, eliminating gender self-identification on federal documents like passports, and ending federal funding for gender-affirming care.

The Situation in Europe and Italy

Mixed signals are also being recorded in Europe. While some countries are advancing in the recognition of trans rights (Sweden has facilitated legal gender changes starting in 2025; the Czech Republic has legalized same-sex civil unions), others governed by conservative or far-right parties are showing restrictive trends.

In Italy, the debate remains open. Law 164 of 1982, while updated by jurisprudence, has not been comprehensively reformed. Trans people continue to face a bureaucratic and medical pathway that is often long and complex in order to obtain a legal change of gender markers. The Zan Bill (DDL Zan), which would have introduced, among other things, protections against discrimination based on gender identity, was rejected by the Senate in 2021.

Social Media and a New Generation of Activism

Social media has radically transformed the dynamics of trans activism. Platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube have allowed a new generation of trans people to share their first-hand experiences, reaching a vast audience and bypassing the filters of traditional media. This has contributed to greater visibility and the normalization of trans identities, especially among younger populations.

At the same time, this very visibility has fueled a backlash: coordinated disinformation campaigns, targeted online harassment, and a polarization of the public debate that tends to reduce the complexity of trans issues to opposing slogans. The challenge for the contemporary movement consists of navigating this double effect of digital visibility—harnessing its potential to raise awareness without succumbing to the toxic dynamics of social media.

Current Challenges

The trans movement today faces a series of interconnected challenges. Access to gender-affirming care remains uneven globally and, in many countries, subject to multi-year waitlists. Violence against trans people, particularly trans women of color, remains an emergency. Legal recognition of gender identity based on self-determination, without medical or judicial requirements, has only been adopted by a minority of states.

At the same time, public awareness of trans issues has never been more widespread. New generations show a more nuanced understanding of gender, and language is evolving to reflect this complexity. The history of the trans movement—from the ashes of Hirschfeld’s Institute to the Stonewall riots, from Law 164 to the WHO’s depathologization—shows a path made of resistance, losses, and victories that continues to evolve.