To understand the present, one must look to the past. The mainstream narrative of LGBTQ rights often begins at the Stonewall Inn in 1969. However, for decades, that narrative was sanitized to remove the most "radical" elements—specifically, the transgender women of color.
The transgender community has fundamentally altered the aesthetic and linguistic landscape of LGBTQ culture.
Transgender individuals have been the primary architects of much of the language and aesthetics used in LGBTQ+ culture today.