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
In the late 1960s in New York, Mario Martino founded the Labyrinth Foundation Counseling Service, which was the first transgender community-based organization that specifically addressed the needs of female-to-male transsexuals.
Transgender people also gained some exposure through popular culture, in particular the work of Andy Warhol. In the 1960s and early 1970s the transgender actresses Holly Woodlawn and Candy Darling were among Warhol's Warhol Superstars, appearing in several of his films. The 1953 film Glen or Glenda explored transsexuality and transvestism; though it got bad reviews, it later became a cult classic. It was loosely inspired by the sex reassignment surgery of Christine Jorgensen; posters for the film, also known as "I Changed My Sex" and "I Led Two Lives", publicize the movie as being based on her. In 1968, Gore Vidal wrote the first American novel in which the lead character undergoes sex reassignment surgery, Myra Breckinridge, which was later made into a film.