To separate trans history from LGBTQ history is to rewrite the past inaccurately. The common narrative that the modern gay rights movement began at the Stonewall Inn in 1969 is only half the story. The leaders of that uprising were not cisgender gay men, but rather transgender women, drag queens, and gender-nonconforming people of color.

Tonight, the air inside was thick with the smell of old wood, cheap beer, and the sweeter perfume of jasmine from a candle burning near the jukebox. At a corner table, a young trans woman named Mara was tracing the rim of her glass. She had arrived in the city six months ago, fleeing a town where the only people who understood her were voices on a screen. Her hair was still growing out from a short cut she’d given herself in a motel bathroom, and her voice, though softer now, still sometimes cracked when she ordered coffee.