This schism has forced the mainstream LGBTQ culture to define its boundaries. Major organizations (Human Rights Campaign, GLAAD, The Trevor Project) have firmly stated that trans rights are human rights, and that to exclude the T is to repeat the racist, exclusionary errors of the 1970s. The response to this conflict has, paradoxically, strengthened the alliance. Most queer spaces have become explicit refuges for trans people, with "trans-exclusionary" views being treated as a form of bigotry akin to racism within the community.
In the United States, the 1969 Stonewall Uprising—the mythical "birth" of the modern gay rights movement—was led by trans women of color. Marsha P. Johnson (a self-identified drag queen and trans activist) and Sylvia Rivera (a Venezuelan-American trans woman) were at the front lines throwing bricks at police. However, as the mainstream gay movement pivoted toward respectability politics in the 1970s and 80s, trans people were often pushed aside. Rivera was famously booed off stage at a gay rights rally in 1973 for demanding that the fight include "gay people, trans people, and drag queens." big cock black shemales