Transgender Awareness Week
A study was conducted by the Williams Institute in June 2016 and concluded that 0.6% of the U.S. population (1.4 million) identify themselves as transgender. Trans people face many issues within their community that causes them to feel like they are in danger and are unsafe. A survey found that 50% of trans people claim to have been raped or assaulted by a romantic partner. Trans people have been murdered simply for being trans, in addition to their loved ones and/or friends because of being involved with them. Some trans women were arrested for fighting back against their attacker. Trans women and supporters formerly united with one another and took stands against discrimination towards trans people by holding riots. Transgender Awareness Week established in response to these killings and imprisonments in order to highlight the challenges faced by trans people.
History of transgender people in the United States
At this time the transgender community became more visible. A high school teacher in Lake Forest, IL, Karen Kopriva, became the first American teacher to transition on the job in 1998. There was considerable media uproar, but when another teacher followed the next year in a different suburb hardly anyone noticed. The Transgender Day of Remembrance was founded in 1998 by Gwendolyn Ann Smith, an American transgender graphic designer, columnist, and activist, to memorialize the murder of transgender woman Rita Hester in Massachusetts in 1998. The Transgender Day of Remembrance is held every year on November 20 and now memorializes all those murdered due to transphobic hate and prejudice. The most prominent version of the Transgender Pride flag was created in 1999 by the American trans woman Monica Helms. The flag was first shown at a pride parade in Phoenix, Arizona in 2000. In 2012 Spokane Trans created their own version of the transgender pride flag. They describe it on their web site as follows: "The top two stripes represent male (blue) to female (pink). The purple represents non-binary and genderqueer people (as the genderqueer flag colors are green, white and purple) the thin white stripe represents all people as well as the "line" trans* folks cross during their transition. Then the female (pink) to male (blue) along the bottom." In 2009 the International Transgender Day of Visibility was founded by Rachel Crandall, also the founder of TransGender Michigan; it is an annual holiday occurring on March 31, dedicated to celebrating transgender people and raising awareness of discrimination faced by transgender people worldwide.