Why Are Trans People Being Abandoned? The Truth About LGB ‘Allies’ and the Fight for Liberation
The past few weeks have made one thing abundantly clear: the erasure of trans and nonbinary people from public life is not just a policy goal of the resurgent right, but a project that mainstream institutions—many of which once claimed to stand with us—are content to let happen. The Trump administration has wasted no time in its systematic dismantling of trans and queer recognition, stripping gender identity from all official documents, banning the listing of pronouns in government emails, and enforcing a strict sex-assignment-at-birth standard across federal agencies. These are not just symbolic moves; they are designed to make trans and nonbinary people disappear from legal recognition entirely. And yet, in the face of this coordinated attack, the largest and most well-funded gay and lesbian organisations remain silent.
For many younger trans and queer people, this abandonment feels like a sudden betrayal. Weren’t these the same groups that marched under the banner of LGBTQ+ rights? Didn’t they claim to fight for all of us? To those of us who have been around long enough to witness the broader arc of history, this moment is not surprising. It is not new. It is simply the continuation of a long-standing pattern—one in which trans people were never truly included, merely tolerated when convenient. The reality is that mainstream gay and lesbian activism was never invested in trans liberation. The coalition that once grouped gender and sexuality together was a marriage of necessity, not solidarity.
For decades, trans and gender-nonconforming people have been at the forefront of the fight for queer survival, yet we have been pushed out time and time again. From the expulsion of trans voices after Stonewall to the open hostility toward trans inclusion in anti-discrimination laws, we have seen this pattern repeat. Now, with marriage equality secured and workplace protections in place for cis gay and lesbian people, we are being discarded once more. The truth is that many of these organisations never saw our struggle as their struggle. They sought assimilation into existing power structures, not the dismantling of those structures to make room for all of us. Understanding this history is crucial, because what we are seeing today is not a deviation from the past—it is its logical conclusion.
The Historical Necessity of Lumping Gender and Sexuality Together
Before the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement, the distinction between sexuality and gender nonconformity was far less rigid than it is today. To the public—and to the law—anyone who deviated from expected gender norms was a target, regardless of whether their “offence” was who they loved or how they presented themselves. There was no neat separation between those who were punished for same-sex attraction and those who were punished for gender nonconformity. The two were inextricably linked, not because of any inherent connection, but because society at large viewed them as equally dangerous to the established order.
Laws criminalising homosexuality often did not specifically reference same-sex attraction at all, instead focusing on gender presentation and social behaviour. In the United States, so-called “masquerading laws”—which prohibited people from wearing clothing that did not “match” their assigned sex—were frequently used to arrest anyone who defied rigid gender norms, whether they were trans, nonbinary, drag performers, butch lesbians, women who wore trousers, or even “effeminate” gay men. These laws, which existed in many states and cities well into the 20th century, were less about clothing and more about enforcing social conformity. Similarly, Britain’s infamous “gross indecency” laws, first introduced in the 19th century, did not criminalise homosexuality outright but were used to target those who were visibly queer or gender nonconforming. The most famous victim, Oscar Wilde, was convicted under these laws in 1895, but so were many working-class queer people who lacked the resources or public profile to fight back.
In bars and on the streets, police raids did not differentiate between trans women, gay men, butch lesbians, or drag queens—anyone who visibly defied gendered expectations was fair game. The routine police harassment of queer gathering spaces, from the Tenderloin district of San Francisco to the mafia-run gay bars of New York City, made no meaningful distinction between sexuality and gender. When the police stormed Compton’s Cafeteria in 1966 or the Stonewall Inn in 1969, those who fought back were not only cis gay and lesbian patrons but trans women, drag queens, and gender-nonconforming people who were already used to being brutalised by the state. Early resistance was not shaped by careful identity politics; it was about survival.
Despite this shared oppression, the formal gay rights movement that began to emerge in the late 1960s and early 70s would later attempt to carve out a more “respectable” identity, one that distanced itself from gender nonconformity in an effort to gain mainstream acceptance. But at the time, there was no choice but to fight together. Visibility itself was the crime, and those who did not conform—whether in gender or in desire—were subject to the same violence, the same arrests, and the same systemic erasure.
Trans and Gender-Nonconforming People Led the Fight—Then Got Pushed Out
The modern LGBTQ+ rights movement is often mythologised as beginning with the Stonewall Riots in 1969, but the convenient mainstream narrative—one that centres white, cis gay men as the primary instigators—erases the true leaders of that moment. Stonewall was not led by respectable, middle-class gay activists in suits; it was led by trans women, gender-nonconforming people, drag queens, butch lesbians, and sex workers who had nothing left to lose. Among them were figures like Marsha P. Johnson, a Black trans woman and self-described drag queen; Sylvia Rivera, a Puerto Rican trans woman; and Stormé DeLarverie, a biracial butch lesbian who is widely believed to have thrown the first punch. These were people who had been brutalised by the police for years, who were harassed simply for existing, and who refused to be silent any longer.
Following Stonewall, the energy of queer radicalism took shape in the Gay Liberation Front (GLF), which rejected the assimilationist approach of earlier homophile movements like the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis. GLF was explicitly intersectional before the term was even widely used—it connected the fight for queer rights to the anti-war movement, Black liberation, feminism, and anti-capitalist struggle. Crucially, GLF recognised that gender nonconformity and sexuality were linked in the fight for liberation, and trans people were part of that coalition. Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson went on to found the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) in 1970, one of the first organisations dedicated specifically to advocating for trans and homeless queer youth.
But as the movement progressed, a split began to emerge. The early 1970s saw the rise of mainstream gay and lesbian organisations that sought political legitimacy and respectability. These groups, such as the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA), broke away from GLF and focused exclusively on securing rights for cis gay men and lesbians. Their strategy was to prove to straight society that they were just like them, that their struggle was merely about love, not a deeper challenge to social order. This approach had no room for trans people, drag queens, or anyone who visibly defied the gender binary.
The rejection of trans people became explicit in 1973, when Sylvia Rivera was physically removed from the stage at the Christopher Street Liberation Day Rally in New York City, what would later be known as NYC Pride. Rivera had been trying to speak about the neglect and abuse of trans and homeless queer youth, but the crowd—largely cis gay men and lesbians—booed her off the stage. That same year, trans women were formally banned from performing at the newly formed Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, a lesbian feminist space that would later become infamous for its trans-exclusionary policies. The feminist movement itself was fracturing, with some radical feminists openly advocating for the exclusion of trans women from women’s spaces, a position that persists today in modern TERF rhetoric.
By the late 1970s, trans people had been almost entirely erased from major gay and lesbian activism. The 1979 National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights did not include trans-specific demands, despite the fact that trans people had been at the forefront of every major queer uprising up to that point. The push for respectability had won out, and trans people—once again—were left behind.
The Rise of Mainstream Gay and Lesbian Respectability Politics
By the 1980s, mainstream gay and lesbian activism had taken a sharp turn toward assimilation. The radical energy of the early liberation movements was steadily replaced by a focus on respectability—on proving that gay and lesbian people were just as “normal” as their straight counterparts. This shift was driven by a combination of political pragmatism, the devastation of the AIDS crisis, and the increasing influence of wealthy, white, cis gay men in the movement. The goal was no longer to dismantle oppressive systems but to gain access to them. And as that goal solidified, trans and gender-nonconforming people—who could not so easily be slotted into heteronormative respectability—were pushed further to the margins.
The AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and early 90s brought both radical resistance and the consolidation of mainstream gay politics. ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) was one of the most militant and effective activist groups of the era, and it explicitly included trans people, sex workers, and people of colour in its organising. Trans women like Miss Major Griffin-Gracy fought on the frontlines of AIDS activism, particularly in advocating for incarcerated queer and trans people. However, the mainstream gay rights organisations of the time, such as the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF), focused almost exclusively on cis gay men. The crisis devastated trans women and queer people of colour, but the leadership of these organisations largely ignored them, choosing instead to push for greater access to government resources that primarily benefited white, middle-class, cis gay men.
This same era saw the rise of two major political campaigns that defined the next two decades of mainstream LGB activism: the push for military inclusion and the fight for marriage equality. These were battles that framed gay and lesbian rights as issues of assimilation rather than liberation. The argument was simple: gay and lesbian people deserved to serve in the military because they were just as patriotic as straight people; they deserved the right to marry because they were just as committed to monogamous, nuclear family structures. Both campaigns were deeply invested in proving that being gay was not a threat to traditional institutions. But that same logic could not apply to trans people, whose very existence challenged the rigid gender norms that these institutions relied on.
Nowhere was this exclusion more explicit than in the fight over the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), a federal bill that sought to prohibit workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation. For years, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) actively lobbied against including gender identity protections in ENDA, arguing that it would make the bill harder to pass. HRC’s leadership feared that openly advocating for trans people would make cis gay and lesbian rights less palatable to lawmakers. This betrayal was most blatant in 2007, when HRC endorsed a version of ENDA that protected only sexual orientation, dropping gender identity entirely. This decision was widely condemned by grassroots activists and trans advocates, but HRC and other mainstream LGB groups defended their approach, claiming that securing rights for cis gay and lesbian people was the priority.
By the end of the 1990s, the major gay and lesbian organisations had successfully positioned themselves as representatives of the “respectable” queer community—one that was largely white, cis, middle-class, and eager to integrate into existing social structures. Trans people, gender-nonconforming people, and others who did not fit this mould were sidelined, abandoned, and told to wait their turn. But that turn never came.
The 1990s–2010s: Tokenism, Not Real Inclusion
By the 1990s and 2000s, mainstream gay and lesbian organisations had successfully positioned themselves as respectable political actors, gaining corporate sponsorships and influence in Washington. But as the movement professionalised, it faced criticism for being too narrow in focus—centred on white, cis, middle-class priorities whilst ignoring the most marginalised members of the community. In response, trans people were gradually added to the acronym, not out of genuine commitment to trans liberation, but because it was useful for optics and funding. Including the "T" allowed organisations like HRC, GLAAD, and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force to present themselves as champions of the entire LGBTQ+ community while continuing to prioritise causes that overwhelmingly benefited cis gay and lesbian people.
Despite their claims of inclusion, these organisations did very little to materially support trans rights. Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, major legislative battles focused on marriage equality and military inclusion, issues that had no direct benefit to trans people. When trans activists pushed for legal protections around housing, healthcare, and employment discrimination, they were often met with resistance from within the very organisations that purported to represent them. In 2007, when a version of the ENDA was introduced without gender identity protections, HRC supported it anyway, despite backlash from trans advocates and grassroots activists. Rather than fighting for a bill that included trans people, HRC calculated that a version protecting only sexual orientation had a better chance of passing, reinforcing a familiar pattern: cis gay and lesbian rights first, trans people as an afterthought.
Meanwhile, GLAAD (the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) claimed to fight for trans media representation but remained largely focused on policing negative depictions of gay and lesbian people, often sidelining trans-led efforts for meaningful visibility. Even when GLAAD did advocate for trans inclusion, it was often superficial—focusing on symbolic representation rather than systemic issues like healthcare access, poverty, or incarceration.
Even the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court ruling, which legalised same-sex marriage nationwide, was framed as a victory for the entire LGBTQ+ community, despite the fact that it had little impact on the most urgent struggles faced by trans people. Marriage equality did nothing to address anti-trans violence, workplace discrimination, the criminalisation of trans people (especially trans women of colour), or the denial of healthcare access. Yet, in the wake of Obergefell, mainstream LGB organisations declared the fight for equality largely over, redirecting their attention to securing corporate sponsorships and expanding their influence in government.
Whilst the Human Rights Campaign and other major groups reaped the benefits of association with trans struggles, the real work of trans liberation remained almost entirely grassroots and community-led. Groups like the Sylvia Rivera Law Project (SRLP), Transgender Law Center, and the Audre Lorde Project fought on the ground for legal protections, mutual aid, and harm reduction, often with minimal funding and no support from the larger LGB organisations. The reality was clear: trans people had been brought into the mainstream movement in name only, whilst the institutions that claimed to represent them continued to prioritise cis gay and lesbian interests above all else.
The Present: The Abandonment of Trans People
The past few weeks since the inauguration of the Tangerine Tyrant have made it painfully clear what many trans people have long suspected: mainstream LGB organisations are no longer interested in fighting for us—if they ever truly were. Now that cis gay and lesbian people have secured marriage equality, military inclusion, and workplace protections, they have little incentive to continue pushing for broader queer liberation. Their primary battles have been won, and for the past decade, their organisations have functioned less as engines for radical change and more as networking hubs for wealthy cis gay men and lesbians eager to secure their place in existing power structures.
The Regime’s renewed attack on trans people—erasing gender identity from federal documents, banning pronouns in government communication, and enforcing strict sex-assigned-at-birth classifications—has been met with a resounding silence from the largest and most well-funded LGB organisations. HRC, GLAAD, and the other legacy groups that claim to represent the “LGBTQ+ community” have said little to nothing as the government systematically works to erase trans and nonbinary existence from public life. Whilst trans-led grassroots groups and activists fight desperately to resist these attacks, their supposed allies have moved on, content with the privileges they’ve secured for themselves.
For many younger trans and queer people, this moment is bewildering. The same organisations that once flew trans flags and claimed to champion inclusivity have abandoned the fight, and many don’t understand why—because they don’t know the history of their own movement. They don’t realise that trans people were only ever included when it was politically expedient, that we were brought in for optics, not out of solidarity. Without this historical context, the current abandonment seems like a sudden betrayal rather than what it really is: the inevitable outcome of a movement that was never built with us in mind.
Meanwhile, the rise of “LGB Without the T” proves that many cis gay and lesbian people are more than willing to align with reactionary forces if it means preserving their own social standing. This movement, which has gained traction in recent years, argues that trans people are a liability to gay and lesbian rights—that fighting for gender diversity undermines the respectability and legitimacy that cis LGB people have worked so hard to cultivate. Many of the same arguments used against trans people today—claims that we are a political distraction, that we are making the movement look bad, that we are too radical—are the exact same arguments used in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s to push us out in the first place. The only difference is that now, it is happening with the full backing of corporate politicians and the reactionary corporate media.
The truth is that we are not being discarded now—we were never fully included. Our erasure from the mainstream movement was not an accident, and it is not new. It is simply the continuation of a long history in which trans people, after being instrumental in queer resistance, are cast aside when it is no longer politically convenient. But we have never needed their permission to fight for ourselves—and we will not start now.
The Future of Trans Liberation Lies Outside Legacy Institutions
The future of trans liberation does not lie within the mainstream LGB movement. It never has. We do not need their permission, their scraps, or their shallow gestures of inclusion. Their fight was always about proving that gay and lesbian people could assimilate into capitalist structures—that they were just like straight capitalists, except for who they loved. That was never our fight. Trans people do not seek mere permission to exist within a system designed to erase us. We do not want to be slotted into the roles assigned to us by a society that has always viewed us as a problem to be solved. Our liberation will not come from sitting quietly and waiting for those who have abandoned us to remember that we exist.
Trans and nonbinary people have always led our own resistance. Sylvia Rivera, Marsha P. Johnson, Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, Leslie Feinberg, Lou Sullivan, Kai Cheng Thom, and countless others—our history is full of people who refused to wait for mainstream acceptance. We did not need corporate sponsorships or well-connected political lobbyists to fight back against police violence, medical neglect, homelessness, and poverty. We built our own shelters, ran our own clinics, and organised our own communities. And that is exactly what we must do again, because the next stage of this fight will not be won with petitions or celebrity endorsements. It will not come from negotiating with those in power—it will come from dismantling the structures that seek to erase us.
There will be no corporate backing for what we must do next. We will not find our roadmap to liberation in Oprah’s self-help platitudes, in Ellen’s hollow calls for kindness, or in the sanitised activism of the Human Rights Campaign. Instead, we must look to the people who have fought and won before us. We can learn from Marx, Lenin, and Mao, from the revolutionary movements that understood that the state, as it exists, is an instrument of repression, not liberation. We are not here to prove that we deserve a seat at the table—we are here to build something entirely different, something that does not require the approval of those who have always sought to erase us.
The real fight is happening now, outside the institutions that claim to represent us. It is in grassroots movements, in mutual aid networks, in the radical legal efforts fighting for those abandoned by the system. It is in the trans-led shelters and healthcare collectives that refuse to let our people be discarded. It is in the small acts of defiance that keep us alive when the world would rather see us disappear. It is in every trans person who refuses to be erased, who refuses to be silent, who refuses to conform to a system that was never meant for us.
We do not need to assimilate into a broken system. We need to dismantle it. Only when we dismantle the structures that uphold gendered oppression, capitalism, and state violence will we truly be free to be ourselves. We were never meant to fit into their world—so we will build our own.
Final thoughts …
The bottom line is this: younger trans and queer people must understand this history, or we will be doomed to repeat it. The silence of mainstream LGB organisations in the face of the Regime’s attacks on trans people is not a shocking betrayal—it is the logical conclusion of a movement that never truly included us. We were not discarded. We were never meant to be there in the first place.
For decades, trans people have been tolerated when politically convenient and abandoned when we became a liability. We were there at the start, leading the fight, but as soon as cis gay and lesbian people saw a path to respectability, they took it—and left us behind. We cannot afford to keep making the mistake of thinking these organisations, these people, will come back for us. They won’t. And whilst they sit in silence, the forces of fascism are growing louder, emboldened by the Tangerine Tyrant’s executive orders and the unspoken permission they grant his followers to escalate their attacks.
We are in a fight for survival. The government is actively erasing us from existence, and the culture war against us is not just rhetoric—it is a call to action for those who would see us gone, both metaphorically and literally. The time for hoping that mainstream organisations will step up is over. Our liberation will not come from them. It will come from us.
If we do not act—if we do not organise, build, and fight for our own future—things will not just remain the same; they will get worse. The fascist right has made trans and nonbinary people a central target in their war on bodily autonomy, education, and free expression. Their goal is not to debate us, nor to exclude us from polite society—it is to eliminate us entirely.
That is why we must take control of our own movement. If we want a future, we must build it ourselves. Not through begging for inclusion, not through assimilation, but through radical, collective resistance. We have done it before, and we will do it again. Because the truth is, we have always fought for ourselves—and we are not stopping now.