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.
Transgender legal history in the United States
On June 30, 2016, Ash Carter announced that the ban on transgender people from openly serving in the US military had been lifted and that the United States Department of Defense was undergoing a twelve-month transition period to satisfy the needs of transgender soldiers. Just over a year later, in July 2017, President Donald Trump tweeted that transgender personnel would again be barred from the military, and he published a memo on August 25, 2017 directing that an implementation plan for a transgender ban be submitted to him by the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security by February 2018.