Accounts oftransgender people (includingnon-binary andthird gender people) have been identified going back to ancient times in cultures worldwide as early as 1200 BCEEgypt. Opinions vary onhow to categorize historical accounts of gender-variant people and identities.

Thegalli,eunuch priests ofclassical antiquity, have been interpreted by some scholars as transgender or third-gender. The trans-femininekathoey andhijra gender roles have persisted for thousands of years inThailand and theIndian subcontinent, respectively. In Arabia,khanith (like earliermukhannathun) have occupied a third gender role attested since the 7th century CE. Traditional roles for transgender women and transgender men have existed in many African societies, with some persisting to the modern day.North American Indigenous fluid andthird gender roles, including theNavajonádleehi and theZunilhamana, have existed sincepre-colonial times.

Some medieval European documents have been studied as possible accounts of transgender persons.Kalonymus ben Kalonymus's lament for being born a man instead of a woman has been seen as an early account ofgender dysphoria.John/Eleanor Rykener, a male-bodied Briton arrested in 1394 while living and doing sex work dressed as a woman, has been interpreted by some contemporary scholars as transgender. In Japan, accounts of transgender people go back to theEdo period. In Indonesia, there are millions of trans-/third-genderwaria, and the extant pre-IslamicBugis society ofSulawesi recognizesfive gender roles.

In the United States in 1776, the genderlessPublic Universal Friend refused both birth name and gendered pronouns. Transgender American men and women are documented in accounts from throughout the 19th century. The first known informaltransgender advocacy organisation in the United States,Cercle Hermaphroditos, was founded in 1895.

Early moderngender-affirming surgeries, including an ovary anduterus transplant, were performed in the early 20th century at theInstitut für Sexualwissenschaft in Germany, which was later raided and destroyed byNazi Germany. The respective transitions of transgender womenChristine Jorgensen andCoccinelle in the 1950s brought wider awareness of gender-affirming surgery to North America and Europe respectively. The grassroots political struggle for transgender rights in the United States produced several riots against police, including the 1959Cooper Donuts Riot, 1966Compton's Cafeteria Riot, and the multi-dayStonewall Riots of 1969. In the 1970s,Lou Sullivan became the first publicly self-identifiedgay trans man and foundedthe first organization for transgender men. At the same time, some radical feminists opposedconstruals of womanhood inclusive of transgender women, creating what would later be known astrans-exclusionary radical feminism (TERF). In the 1990s and 2000s, theTransgender Day of Remembrance was established in the United States, and transgender politicians were elected to various public offices. Legislative and court actions began recognizing transgender people's rights in some countries, while some countries and societies have continued to abridge therights of transgender people.

A precise history of the global occurrence of transgender people is difficult to compose because the modern concept of being transgender, and of gender in general as relevant to transgender identity, did not develop until the mid-20th century. Historical understandings are thus inherently filtered through modern principles, and were largely viewed through a medical lens until the late 20th century.^[1][2] LGBTQ+ scholar Genny Beemyn writes:^[3]: 1

Can there be said to be a "transgender history," when "transgender" is a contemporary term and when individuals in past centuries who would perhaps appear to be transgender from our vantage point might not have conceptualized their lives in such a way? And what about individuals today who have the ability to describe themselves as transgender, but choose not to for a variety of reasons, including the perception that it is a White, middle-class Western term and the belief that it implies transitioning from one gender to another? Should they be left out of "transgender history" because they do not specifically identify as transgender?

Genny Beemyn argues that transgender history has also been filtered through gay history, identifyingBilly Tipton as an example of a historical figure misrepresented by scholars as gay when a transgender reading of his life would be more appropriate.^[3]: 3

Absence of autobiographical accounts has resulted in historians assigning identities to historical figures, which of course may be inaccurate.^[3]: 3 Author Jason Cromwell assesses that if a person of the female sex indicated that they were a man, modified their body to look more traditionally male, and lived their life as a man, then he was a trans man; the same approach has been used to identify trans women. Genny Beemyn distinguishes trans people from crossdressers in the historical record by assessing that a person who crossdressed only in public did not mind exposing their dual life as a crossdresser, while those who crossdressed consistently (also in private) and sought to keep their sex a secret were more likely trans.^[3]: 4

Beemyn also distinguishes non-binary people in the historical record. They note Indigenous societies in the "New World" who historically had non-binary gender roles enshrined in their society, which enraged European explorers. For example, in 1513Vasco Núñez de Balboa killed 40 natives on thePanama Isthmus for being sodomites, as they had been assigned male at birth but were practicing female gender roles. Not all Europeans were as judgmental: a matter-of-fact 1564 narrative describes "hermaphrodites" as "quite common". An account fromEdwin Thompson Denig in the first half of the 19th century describes a "neuter" gender among theCrow people. Denig said of it: "Strange country this, where males assume the dress and perform the duties of females, while women turn men and mate with their own sex!" Beemyn concludes that European writers lacked the language or cultural understanding to adequately describe the practices they were witnessing. Overall, they caution not to make generalizations about native practices, since third gender roles were extremely diverse and ranged from exalted positions who were believed to have supernatural power, to denigrated underlings.^[3]: 5–7

Ancient Egypt had third gender categories, including for eunuchs.^[4] In theTale of Two Brothers (from 3,200 years ago), Bata removes his penis and tells his wife "I am a woman just like you"; one modern scholar called him temporarily (before his body is restored) "transgendered".^{[4][5][page needed][6][page needed]}

TheNuba peoples ofSudan (including theOtoro Nuba,Nyima,Tira,Krongo, andMesakin), have traditional roles for male-assigned people who dress and live as women and may marry men, which have been seen as transgender roles.^{[7][8][page needed][9]} Trans people face discrimination in the modern Sudanese state, and cross-dressing is illegal.^[10][11]

By the modern period, theIgbo had third-gender and transgender roles,^[7][12] including for females who take on male status and marry women, a practice which also exists among the Dahomey (Fon) ofBenin and has been viewed through both transgender and homosexual lenses.^[13] Anthropologist John McCall documented a female-assignedOhafia Igbo named Nne Uko Uma Awa, who dressed and behaved as a boy since childhood, joined men's groups, and was a husband to two wives; in 1991, Awa stated "by creation I was meant to be a man. But as it happened, when coming into this world I came with a woman's body. That is why I dressed [as a man]."^[12][14]

Among some Kenyan peoples, male priests (calledmugawe among theMeru andKikuyu) dress and style their hair like women and may marry men,^{[15][page needed]} and have been compared to trans women.^[7][9]

Among theNuer people (in what is nowSouth Sudan andEthiopia), widows who have borne no children may adopt a male status, marry a woman, and be regarded as the father of any children they bear (a practice which has been viewed as transgender or homosexual);^[9][16][17] the Nuer are also reported to have a male-to-female role.^[7] TheMaale people ofEthiopia also have a traditional role for male-assignedashtime who take on feminine roles; traditionally, they served as sexual partners for the king on days he was ritually barred from sex with women.^[18] TheAmhara people of Ethiopia stigmatize men in their communities who adopt feminine dress.^[19][20]

InUganda today, transphobia and homophobia is increasing, introduced in the 1800s and 1900s by Christian missionaries^[21] and stoked in the 2000s by conservative Americanevangelicals;^[22] trans people are now often kicked out by their families and denied work, and face discrimination in accessing healthcare.^[23][24][25] Before their Christianization, Ugandan peoples were largely accepting of trans and gay people;^[21] theLango people accepted trans women—male-assigned people calledjo apele orjo aboich who were believed to have been transformed at conception into women by the androgynous deity Jok, and who adopted women's names, dress, and face-decorations, grew their hair long, simulated menstruation, and could marry men^[9][21]—as did theKaramojong andTeso,^[21] and theLugbara people had roles for both trans women (okule) and trans men (agule).^[26][27]

VariousBantu peoples insouthern Africa, including theZulu,Basotho,Mpondo andTsonga, had a tradition of young men (inkotshane in Zulu,boukonchana inSesotho,tinkonkana in Mpondo, andnkhonsthana in Tsonga; called "boy-wives" in English) who married or hadintercrural or anal sex with older men, and sometimes dressed as women, wore breast prostheses, did not grow beards, and did women's work;^[7][28] these relationships became common among South African miners and continued into the 1950s,^[29] and while often interpreted as homosexual, boy-wives are sometimes seen as transgender.^[30]

In two cases in 2017, Botswana's High Court ruled trans men and trans women have the right to have their gender identity recognized by the government and to change gender markers; the court said the registrar's refusal to change a marker was unreasonable and violated the person's "rights to dignity, privacy, freedom of expression, equal protection of the law, freedom from discrimination and freedom from inhumane and degrading treatment".^[31][32][33]

From the 1960s to 1980s, theSouth African Defence Force forced some white gay and lesbian soldiers to havesex reassignment surgery.^[34]

Since March 2004, trans andintersex people areallowed to change their legal sex^[35] after medical treatment such ashormone replacement therapy.^[36] SeveralLabour Court rulings have found against employers that mistreated employees who transitioned.^[37]

Prior to western contact, someIndigenous peoples in North America hadthird-gender roles,^{[39][page needed]} like theDiné (Navajo)nádleehi and theZunilhamana. European anthropologists usually referred to these people asberdaches, which Indigenous people have always considered an offensive slur.^[40][41] In 1990, participants in the Third Annual Inter-tribal Native American, First Nations, Gay and Lesbian American Conference in Winnipeg, Canada, adopted thepan-Indianneologismtwo-spirit; this was largely an effort to replace the offensive slur,berdache, as well as an attempt to organize inter-tribally.^{[40][41][42][43]} Though acceptance of this term in traditional Native communities (which already have their own terms for such people in their own languages, if they have roles for them at all) has been limited, it has generally met with more acceptance than the slur it replaced.^[40]

One of the first European accounts ofIroquois practices of gender was made by missionaryJoseph-François Lafitau who spent six years among the Iroquois starting in 1711,^[44] and observed "women with manly courage who prided themselves upon the profession of warrior, [and seemed] to become men alone", and people he called "men cowardly enough to live as women."^{[45][relevant?]}

Lynn Meskell and Karen Olsen Bruhns write that there is archaeological evidence that third-gender or similar people existed in California 2,500 years ago at rates comparable to those at which they currently exist among Indigenous peoples in the region,^[46][47] andBarbara Voss states that archaeological and ethnographic evidence suggests third-gender categories in North America may go back to thefirst migrations of people from eastern Asia and Siberia over 10,000 years ago.^[48]

This sectionneeds expansion with: material from the period 1970 to 2002. You can help bymaking an edit requestadding to it. Find sources: "Canada" transgender history – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(October 2021)

In 1970,Dianna Boileau underwent sex reassignment surgery atToronto General Hospital, becoming possibly the first in Canada to do so. Over the following two years, Boileau shared her story with a number of press outlets and published a 1972 memoir,Behold, I Am a Woman, before retreating from the public eye.^[49]

In 2002,sexual orientation andgender identity were included in theNorthwest Territories Human Rights Act.

In June 2012, gender identity and expression were added to the Ontario Human Rights Code, and gender identity was added to the Manitoba Human Rights Code.^[50] In December 2012 Nova Scotia added gender identity and expression to the list of things explicitly protected from harassment in that province's Human Rights Act.^[51] In May 2012, after a legal battle to reverse her disqualification for not being a "naturally born female", Vancouver residentJenna Talackova became the first trans woman to compete in aMiss Universe pageant, and was one of four contestants to win "Miss Congeniality".^[52]

In March 2013, the House of Commons passed Bill C-279 to officially extendhuman rights protections to trans people in Canada.^[53] In February 2015, theSenate of Canada amended the bill in ways that were criticized astransphobic.^[54]

In December 2015, legislatorEstefania Cortes-Vargas came out asnon-binary in theLegislative Assembly of Alberta during a debate over the inclusion of transgender rights in the provincial human rights code.^[55] While the provincialHansard normally reports members' speeches under the gender honorifics "Mr." or "Ms.", Cortes-Vargas is recorded as "Member Cortes-Vargas".^[55] On December 17, 2015,Kael McKenzie was appointed to theProvincial Court of Manitoba, becoming Canada's first openly transgender judge.^[56]

In 2016, gender identity or expression was added to theQuebec Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The same year,Jennifer Pritzker gave a $2 million donation to create the world's first endowed academic chair oftransgender studies, at theUniversity of Victoria in British Columbia;Aaron Devor was chosen as the inaugural chair.^[57] In May 2016,Bill C-16 was introduced aiming to update theCanadian Human Rights Act andCriminal Code to include gender identity and expression as protected grounds from discrimination, hate publication and advocacy of genocide, and to add targeting of victims on the basis of gender identity and expression to the list of aggravating factors in sentencing,^[58] the first time such a bill was put forward by the governing party in the House of Commons.^[58] Since June 2017, all places within Canada explicitly within the Canadian Human Rights Act or equal opportunity or anti-discrimination legislation do prohibit discrimination against gender identity or expression.^[59]

Since August 2017, Canadians can indicate that they are neither male nor female on their passports, using an 'x' marker.^[60]

In January 2018,Canadian Women's Hockey League playerJessica Platt came out, the first trans woman to come out in North American professional hockey.^[61]

In 1791, early in theHaitian Revolution, a black planter who had been raised as a boy led an uprising in southern Haiti^[62][63][64] under the nameRomaine-la-Prophétesse ("Romaine the Prophetess").^[65][66] Romaine dressed like a woman^[67][68][69] and spoke of being possessed by a female spirit,^[65][70] may have been transgender orgenderfluid, and has been compared to the transgender femininereligious figures of West Africa, the area many black Haitians descended from.^[66][67][71] Mary Grace Albanese andHourya Bentouhami [fr] list Romaine among the women who led the Haitian Revolution, while Terry Rey argues calling Romaine transgender could be anachronistic.^[71][67][72] Romaine has been compared toKimpa Vita, who professed to be the incarnation of a male Catholic saint.^[65][66]

In the modern era, discrimination and violence against transgender people is common in Haitian society, though many LGBT people find it easier to be open about their gender within theVodou subculture,^[73][74] in which it is believed, for example, that people may be possessed by divinities of the opposite sex.^[70] Haiti's criminal code prohibits vagrancy, with a specific mention oftransvestites.^[75]

In several pre-Columbian communities across Mexico, anthropologists and colonial accounts document acceptance of third-gender categories.^[76]

TheZapotec people ofOaxaca have a third gender role formuxes, people who dress, behave and perform work otherwise associated with the other binarygender;^[77][78][79]vestidas wear feminine clothes, whilepintadas wear masculine clothes but also makeup and jewellery.^[80] They may marry women or men.^[78] It has been suggested that while the three gender system predates Spanish colonization, the phenomenon of muxes dressing as women may be more recent.Juchitán de Zaragoza, an Indigenous community on theIsthmus of Tehuantepec, has so many well-accepted muxes there is a myth attributing their numbers to a bag of third-genders carried by Saint Vicent ripping and accidentally spilling many out over the town;^[81] one study estimated 6% of males in the community in the 1970s were muxes.^[82]

During theMexican Revolution,Amelio Robles Ávila began to dress and demand to be treated as a man^[83] and, gaining respect as a capable leader, was promoted to colonel.^[84] Robles' maleness was accepted by family, society, and the Mexican government, and he lived as a man from age 24 until death;^[83] a neighbor said that if anyone called Robles a woman, Robles would threaten them with a pistol,^[85][86] and he killed two men who attacked him and tried to reveal his anatomy.^[87]

Thomas(ine) Hall, anindentured servant in Virginia, reported being both a man and a woman and adopted clothes and roles of each at different times until ordered by a court in 1629 to wear both men's breeches and a woman's apron; Hall is thought to have beenintersex and is cited as an early example of "a gender nonconforming individual in colonial America".^[88][89]

In 1776, thePublic Universal Friend reported being genderless, dressed androgynously, and asked followers gained while preaching throughout New England over the next four decades not to use their birth name or gendered pronouns;^[90] some scholars have called the Friend a chapter in trans history "before [the word] 'transgender'".^[91] There were also cases of people living as the opposite gender in the early years of the Republic, such asJoseph Lobdell, who wasassigned female at birth in 1829, lived as a man for sixty years, and married a woman.Charley Parkhurst was astagecoach driver who was assigned female at birth but lived his professional life as a man.^[92]

During the Civil War, over 200 people who had been assigned female at birth donned men's clothing and fought as soldiers; some lived the rest of their lives as men and are thought by some to have been transgender, such asAlbert Cashier.^[93] After the war,Frances Thompson, a formerly enslaved black trans woman, testified before Congress's investigation of theMemphis Riots of 1866; ten years later, she was arrested for "being a man dressed in women's clothing".^[94][95][96]

In the late 1800s,We'wha, aZunilhamana fiber artist and potter, became a prominent cultural ambassador, visitingWashington, D.C. in 1896 and meeting PresidentGrover Cleveland. Thelhamana are male-bodied people who may at times take on the social and ceremonial roles usually performed by women in their culture, and at other times the roles more traditionally associated with men.^[97][98][99]

In 1895 a group of self-described androgynes in New York organized a club called theCercle Hermaphroditos, "to unite for defense against the world's bitter persecution".^[100] They includedJennie June (assigned male at birth in 1874), whoseThe Autobiography of an Androgyne (1918) was one of a few first-person accounts in the early years of the 20th century which cast light on what life for a transgender person was like then.^[101]

In some cases, immigrants would change their gender identity upon arrival in the United States, especially those assigned female at birth, ostensibly for social mobility, likeFrank Woodhull, a Canadian immigrant who lived for about 15 years as a man inCalifornia and in 1908 was forced to disclose this during processing atEllis Island.^[102]

American jazz musician and bandleaderBilly Tipton (assigned female at birth in 1914) lived as a man from the 1940s until his death,^[103] while socialite and chefLucy Hicks Anderson insisted as a child that she was a girl and was supported by her parents and doctors and later by theOxnard, California community in which she was a popular hostess from the 1920s to 1940s.^{[104][105][106]} In 1917,Alan L. Hart was one of the first trans men to undergo ahysterectomy andgonadectomy, and later became a pioneeringphysician andradiologist.^[107]

The possibility of someone changing sex became widely known whenChristine Jorgensen in 1952 became the first person widely publicized as undergoingsex reassignment surgery.^[108] Around the same time, organizations and clubs began to form, such asVirginia Prince'sTransvestia publication for an international organization ofcross-dressers,^[109] but this operated in the same shadows as the still forming gay subculture. In the late 1950s and 1960s, modern transgender and gay activism began with the 1959Cooper Donuts Riot in Los Angeles, 1966Compton's Cafeteria riot in San Francisco, and a defining event in gay and transgender activism, the 1969Stonewall Riots in New York; prominent activists includedSylvia Rivera.

The 1970s and 1980s saw organizations devoted to transgender social activities or activism come and go, including activist Lou Sullivan's FTM support group that grew intoFTM International, the leading advocacy group for trans men.^[109] Somefeminist and lesbian organizations and individuals began to debate whether transgender women should be accepted into women's groups and events. In 1972, the San Francisco chapter of the lesbian political groupDaughters of Bilitis voted to no longer include trans women, expellingBeth Elliott, a trans lesbian who had served as the group's vice-president,^{[110][111][112]} and in 1973, a minority of attendees opposed Elliott's presence at the West Coast Lesbian Conference she had helped create.^[110][112] In 1976, theMichigan Womyn's Music Festival and its "women-born-women" policy began, and in 1979, Janice Raymond assailed trans womanSandy Stone, who had been employed at the women's music collectiveOlivia Records.^[113] In 1987, Stone wrote "The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto" in response, a founding text oftransgender studies.^[114]

The 1990s saw the establishment ofTransgender Day of Remembrance to honor those lost to violence,Paris is Burning documenting gay and trans New Yorkball culture, transgender marches and parades around the time ofPride celebrations, and—increasingly in the 2000s and after—the visibility of transgender people rose, withMonica Roberts startingTransGriot in the mid-2000s to model accurate media coverage of the trans community,^[115] actressLaverne Cox being on the cover ofTIME in 2014^[116][117] andCaitlyn Jenner coming out in 2015.^[118] Early trans officials likeJoanne Conte (elected in 1991 toArvada, Colorado's city Council)^[119] andAlthea Garrison (elected to the Massachusetts house in 1992, serving from 1993 to 1995)^[120] were not out when elected in the 1990s; whileKim Coco Iwamoto became the first openly trans person elected to statewide office when she won election to the Hawaii Board of Education in 2006 (and later to the Hawaii Civil Rights Commission in 2012),^[121][122] andDanica Roem became the first openly trans person to serve in a state legislature when she won a seat in the Virginia house in 2017.^[123]

Organizations such as theGirl Scouts^[124] and theEpiscopal Church announced acceptance of transgender members^[125] in the 2010s. In 2016, the Obama administration issued guidance that clarified Title IX protections for transgender students, the most well-known being allowing trans students to use bathrooms and locker rooms matching their gender identity.^[126] Some legislative bodies passed discriminatory bills, such as North Carolina'sHB 2 (in 2016), and beginning 2017 the Trump administration rescinded the Obama-era protections of trans students,^[127] rescinded rules against healthcare providers discriminating against trans patients,^[128][129] and issued a series of orders againstemployment of trans people by the department of defense.^[130] In 2020, the Supreme Court ruled inBostock v. Clayton County thatTitle VII of the Civil Rights Act protects employees against discrimination because ofgender identity (or sexual orientation).^[131]

In 2016, Bolivia passed the Gender Identity Law, which allowed people over 18 to change their name, gender, and picture on legal documents.^[132]

European explorers reportedtransmasculine andtransfeminine identities among the indigenous populations in the 16th century.^[133][134] Beginning in the mid-18th century, sex and gender in the daily life of indigenous people was systematically restructured by the state to align withheteronormative European family structures.^[how?][135] Over the next 100 years there were repeated arrests for cross-dressing, mostly targeting blacktravestis.^[134]

In the 1950s and 60s, gay bars began to open inRio de Janeiro and travestis gained greater prominence in the theater, having previously been relegated toCarnival anddrag balls.^[136] Themilitary dictatorship (1964–1985) heavily persecuted and censored travestis and many were systematically pressured into sex work.^[136] Theabertura period (1975–1985) saw the growth of the various LGBT movements, though the Brazilian homosexual movement excluded travestis for a while.^[136] Travestis began to star in television and become household names.^[137]

By the early 1990s, travestis and transsexuals organized political organizations which organized against police violence and for better care for those with HIV/AIDS.^[138] By the late 1990s they were included in the Brazilian homosexual movement, and prominent gay and lesbian organizations expanded their scope to gay, lesbian, and travesti/transsexual.^[136][138] The next few decades saw greater recognition by the state, culminating in the passage of legislation in the 2010s protectinggender-affirming care, establishing the right to name and gender changes, and establishing non-discrimination protections on the basis of gender.^[139] At the same time, violence against travestis has continued in Brazil, which in 2021 had the largest number of trans and queer people murdered worldwide for the 13th consecutive year, and the majority of the population continues to be engaged in prostitution.^[139][140]

During theSpanish colonization era,Antonio de Erauso, born Catalina de Arauso, dressed as a man to fight in theArauco War and was known as "the ensign nun". After being expelled from a convent inSan Sebastián, Erauso set sail for the New World as a man to fight againstMapuche armies in 1619. Erauso was decorated for bravery and awarded the rank of ensign, with no one doubting Erauso's sex. In 1623 Erauso revealed the true story, and after a medical examination to prove virginity, Erauso was sent to Spain, and was interviewed by KingPhilip IV of Spain and PopeUrban VIII, who granted Erauso the right to be treated as a man.^[141]

In March 1973, the firstgender-affirming surgery in Latin America took place in Chile, whenMarcia Torres underwent it in a Santiago hospital.^[142][143] This took place just months before the1973 Chilean coup d'état, and the new dictatorship underAugusto Pinochet began adopting policies which criminalized and marginalized the activities of gay and trans people.^[144] Torres acquired the changed identity documents she sought from the courts after her surgery.^[145]

In 2018, PresidentSebastián Piñera signed the Gender Identity Law, which allows transgender people over age 14 "to update their names on legal documents and guarantees their right to be officially addressed according to their true gender."^[146]

In December 2018, Davinson Stiven Erazo Sánchez was charged with the murder of Anyela Ramos Claros, a transgender woman, as a gender-based hate crime. Under the Rosa Elvira Cely law, feminicide, defined as "the killing of a woman because of her gender, or where there were previous instances of violence between the victim and the accused, including sexual violence," was made punishable by a prison sentence of 20 to 50 years. Claros was only the second transgender woman to have her murderer punished under this law.^[147]

Prior to the 16th century arrival of Spanish conquistadors, the Inca Empire and their Moche predecessors revered third-gender persons and organized their society around an Andean cosmovision that made room for masculine and feminine ambiguity based in "complementary dualism." Third-gender shamans as ritual practitioners were subject to violence as the Spanish suppressed pre-colonial worldviews.^[148]

In 2014, the Peruvian Constitutional Court ruled against a transgender woman changing her gender on her national identity document, but in October 2016 the court reversed the earlier decision, acknowledging "people are not only defined by their biological sex, but one must also take into consideration their psychic and social reality." Following this, transgender people in Peru can petition a judge for a legal gender change without having undergone sexual reassignment surgery.^[149]

In 2018, Uruguay passed a law granting rights to transgender people, entitling them to gender confirmation surgery and hormones paid for by the state. The law also mandates that a number of transgender people receive public jobs.^[150] Transgender people can now specify their gender identity and change their legal name without requiring approval from a judge. In addition, transgender people who suffered persecution during theUruguayan military dictatorship from 1973 to 1985 will receive compensation.^[151] The law also allows minors (under 18) to legally change name without prior parental or court approval.^[152]

For the history of Roman and Byzantine Asia, see§ Rome and Byzantium.

Khanith are a gender category inOman andArabia who function in some sexual and social ways as women,^[153] and are variously considered to fill an "alternative gender role",^[154] to be transgender, or (as they are still considered men by Omani standards and laws) to be transvestites.^[155] Discussing the (male-assigned) khanith, oldermukhannathun and Egyptiankhawalat, and the (female-assigned)ghulamiyat, Everett Rowson writes there is "considerable evidence for institutionalized cross-dressing and other cross-gender behavior in pre-modern Muslim societies, among both men and to some extent women" which existed fromMuhammad's day and continued into theUmayyad andAbbasid periods^[156] and, in the khanith, into the present.

Under ShahMohammad Reza Pahlavi, transsexuals and crossdressers were classed with gays and lesbians and faced lashing or death.

Beginning in the 1970s, trans womanMaryam Khatoon Molkara wrote toRuhollah Khomeini asking for support to live as a woman, and building on a 1963 decision that corrective surgery for intersex people was not against Islamic law, he agreed.^[157] After theIslamic Revolution, Molkara was institutionalized andforced to detransition, but later released, and in 1985 personally convincedAhmad Khomeini to decree transition and sex reassignment surgery allowed in Islamic law; she advocated for transgender rights until her death in 2012.

As of 2008,^[update] Iran carries out more sex change operations than any other nation except Thailand;^[158] the government pays up to half the cost for those needing financial assistance, and a sex change is recognized on one's birth certificate.^[159] Some gay people are also pressured into sex reassignment.^[160]

In 1998, Israeli pop singerDana International became the first trans person to enter and win theEurovision Song Contest.^[161][162] In 2008, singer and trans womanAderet became popular in Israel and neighboring Lebanon.^[163]

The second week of June is theTel Aviv Pride Parade, during internationalLGBT Pride month. In 2008 it coincided with the building of an LGBT Centre in Tel Aviv.^{[164][non-primary source needed]} In 2015, the parade was led byGila Goldstein, who in the 1960s became one of the first Israelis to receive sex reassignment surgery.^[165] The festival is popular, with over 200,000 participants in 2016.^[166]

Eunuchs, who served in theOttoman Empire from the 16th to late 19th century^[167] (and were commonly exiled to Egypt after their terms,^[168] where black eunuchs had served pre-Ottoman rulers as civil servants since the 10th century)^[169] have sometimes been viewed as a kind of third gender or an alternative male gender.^[170]

Early Russian ethnographers observed thatChukchi shamans inSiberia were sometimes said to be called by mystical forces to engage in a form ofritualized homosexual relations with other men. This ritual typically involved agender change — a religious ceremony that, it was believed, transformed a shaman's genitalia into that of a female. After the change, the shaman might dress in women's clothing and behave in feminine ways. He was then believed to "lose" masculine traits like hunting skill, and instead take on "feminine" traits, like healing and nurturing. Some of these shamans would take male lovers, and could even marry other men, and the shaman would take on a "wifely" role. Homosexual relations outside of this specialized role were reportedly not tolerated.^[171][172]

Eunuchs existed in China over 3000 years ago. They were imperial servants and common as civil servants from the time of theQin dynasty until a century ago.^[173][174] Eunuchs have sometimes been viewed as a third sex^[175][176] or a transgender practice, and Chinese histories have often expressed the relationship of a ruler to his officials in the terms of a male relationship to females.^[177]

Cross-gender behavior has long been common in Chinese theatre, especially indan roles, since at least theMing andQing dynasties.^{[177][178][179]} Today,Jin Xing is a well-known entertainer and trans woman.^[180]

In the mid-1930s, after Yao Jinping's father went missing during the war with Japan, the 19-year-old reported having lost all feminine traits and become a man (and was said to have an Adam's apple and flattened breasts) and left to find him; the event was widely reported on by the press.^[181][182] Du He, who wrote an account of it, insisted Yao did become a man, and Yao has been compared to bothLili Elbe (who underwent sex reassignment in the same decade) andHua Mulan (a mythical wartime crossdresser).^[181][182]

In the 1950s, doctors in Taiwan forcedXie Jianshun, an intersex man, to undergo male-to-female sex reassignment surgery; Taiwanese press compared the former soldier toChristine Jorgensen, who had sought out surgery,^[183][184] and the decade-long media frenzy over Xie led to increased coverage of intersex and transgender people in general.^[185]

In the 1990s, transgender studies was established as an academic discipline. Transgender people are considered a "sexual minority" in China,^[186] where widespreadtransphobia means trans people face discrimination in accessing housing, education, work, and healthcare.^{[178][187][188]} China requires trans people to get the consent of their families before sex reassignment surgery, leading many to buy hormones on the black market and attempt surgeries on themselves.^[187][188]

On October 31, 2024, a Chinese transgender woman was approved by Changli county people's court inQinhuangdao to receive 60,000 yuan (£6,552) in compensation from a hospital that gave her electroshock conversion treatment against her will. This was the first time any transgender person in China won a legal challenge against the use of electroshock conversion treatment.^[189]

Historical documentation of male- and female-assigned transgender people is extensive, especially in theEdo period.^[190]Trans-masculine people were found especially inYoshiwara, Edo's red-light district, and in the modern era have worked inonabe bars since the 1960s.^[190] At the start of the Edo period in 1603,Izumo no Okuni foundedkabuki (dressing as a handsome man to tryst with a woman in one popular performance, and being honored with a statue near where she performed which depicts her as a cross-dressing samurai with a sword and fan); in 1629, when theTokugawa shogunate banned women from acting,^[190] male performers took on the roles of women. Some, such asonnagata actorYoshizawa Ayame I (1673–1729) dressed, behaved and ate like women even outside the theatre.^[191]

In 2004 Japan passed a law requiring people who want to change their gender marker to have sex reassignment surgery and be sterilized, be single, and have no children under age 20, which the supreme court upheld in 2019.^[192][193] In 2017, Japan became one of the first countries in the modern world to elect an openly trans man to office, electingTomoya Hosoda as a city councillor inIruma.^[194][195]

Under theKhmer Rouge,Phnom Penh's trans community was expelled or killed, and trans women and men were raped, jailed, or killed.^[196] Some escaped and live as refugees in the US.^[197]

Indian texts from as early as 3000 years ago document a third gender, which has been connected to thehijras who have formed a category of third-gender or trans-feminine people on the Indian subcontinent since ancient times.^[198] In theRigveda (from roughly 3500 years ago), it is said that before creation the world lacked all distinctions, including of sex and gender, a state ancient poets expressed with images like men with wombs or breasts.^[199] TheMahabharata (from 2–3000 years ago) tells of a trans man,Shikhandi.^[200][201] In theRamayana (from roughly 2000 years ago), whenRama asks "men and women" not to follow him, hijras remain and he blesses them.^[202][203] Most hijras are assigned male at birth (and may or may not castrate themselves),^[204] but some are intersex and a few are assigned female.^[205] Hijras wear feminine clothing and usually adopt feminine names, often live together in households (often regardless of differences in caste or religion) and relate to each other as femalefictive kin (sisters, daughters, etc.), and perform at events such as births and weddings.^[202][204]

The BuddhistTipitaka, composed about 2100 years ago, documents four gender categories: female, male,pandaka, andubhatobyanjanaka.^[206][207] It says theBuddha was tolerant of monks transitioning to nuns,^[208] at least initially, though trans people did face some stigma,^[207] and the possibility of monastic transition was later curtailed when the tradition offemale monasticism was extinguished inTheravada Buddhism,^[208] and between the third to fifth century, Indian Buddhists were hostile to transgender people.^[209] These trans- and third-gender categories have been connected to the§ kathoeys who exist in Thailand.^[208]

Beginning in the 1870s, the colonial authorities attempted to eliminate hijras, prohibiting their performances and transvestism.^[204] In India, since independence, several state governments have introduced specific welfare programs to redress historical discrimination against hijras and transgender people.^[210] Today, there are at least 490,000 hijras in India,^[211] and an estimated 10,000 to 500,000 inBangladesh,^[212] and they are legally recognized as a third gender inBangladesh,India,Nepal, andPakistan.^[211][213] In 1999,Kamla Jaan became the first hijra elected mayor of an Indian city,Katni, and around the same timeShabnam Mausi was elected as a legislator fromGorakhpur.^[198] In Bangladesh, in 2019, several trans people filed to run for parliament, which currently has no trans or hijra members.^[214]

In Hinduism,Ardhanarishvara, a half-male, half-female fusion ofShiva andShakti, is one of several deities important to many hijras and transgender Hindus,^[215][216] and has been called an androgynous and transgender deity.^[217][218]

Indonesia has a trans-/third-gender category of people calledwaria.^[219] It has been estimated that there are over 7 millionwaria in the Indonesian population of 240-260 million people.^[220]

TheBugis ofSulawesi recognize three sexes (male, female,intersex) andfive genders:makkunrai, comparable tocisgender women;oroané, tocisgendermen;calabai, to trans women;calalai, to trans men; andbissu, anandrogynous gender.^{[221][222][223]}

An all-transgendernetball team from Indonesia competed at the 1994 Gay Games inNew York City. The team had been the Indonesian national champions.^[224]

Today, male-assigned people who adopt a feminine gender expression and are transgender or gay are termedbakla and sometimes considered a third gender.^{[225][226][227]} Historically, cross-genderbabaylan shamans were respected and termedbayog orbayoc in Luzon andasog in the Visayan Islands^[225] until outlawed in 1625 and suppressed by Spanish colonial authorities.^[228][229] TheTeduray people inMindanao accepted two trans identities,mentefuwaley lagey ("one who became a man") andmentefuwaley libun ("one who became a woman") into at least the 1960s.^[225][230] Crossdressing was practiced during American colonial rule. Singer and actress Helen Cruz was a prominent trans figure, especially in the 1960s, and pioneer ofSwardspeak.^[231][232]

Some (especially Thai) scholars identify the third- and fourth genders documented in theTipitaka with thekathoey, a third-gender category which was already a part of traditional Thai and Khmer culture by that the time that scripture was composed about 2100 years ago.^[208] Some (especially Thai) Buddhists sayAnanda (Buddha's cousin and attendant) was born akathoey/transgender in many previous lives,^[208] but that it was to expiate for a past misdeed.^[233]

The category ofkathoey was historically open to male-assigned, female-assigned and intersex people.^[234] Since the 1970s, the term has come to be used (by others) to denote mainly male-assigned transvestites or trans women,^[234][235] the latter of whom usually refer to themselves simply asphuying ("women"); a minority refer to themselves asphuying praphet song ("second-type women") orsao praphet song ("second-type females"), and only very few refer to themselves askathoey.^[236][237]Kathoey is often rendered into English as "ladyboy".

Thailand has become a center for performingsex reassignment surgery, and now performs more than any other country.^[158] In 2015, the government proposed recognizing third-gender people in the constitution,^[238] but instead only retained personal protections regardless ofphet ("sex") which was interpreted to include trans people; a third gender is not recognized on identity documents.^[239][240]

Certain drawings and figures from the Neolithic period and Bronze Age found around the Mediterranean have been interpreted as genderless.^[241]

Near what is todayPrague, a burial from 4,900 to 4,500 years ago was found of a biologically male skeleton in a woman's outfit with feminine grave goods, which some archaeologists consider an early transgender burial.^{[242][243][244][245][246]}

In Ancient Greece,Phrygia, and theRoman Republic andEmpire,Cybele andAttis were worshiped bygalli priests (documented from around 200 BCE to around 300 CE)^[247] who wore feminine clothes, referred to themselves as women, and oftencastrated themselves,^[248][249] and have therefore been seen as early transgender figures.^[250][251]

In Rome, cross-dressing was also practiced duringSaturnalia, which some argue reinforced established gender identities by making such practices unacceptable outside that rite.^[252] Romans also viewed cross-dressing negatively and imposed it as a punishment, as when Charondas of Catane decreed deserters wear female clothes for three days or when, after Crassus' defeat, the Persians hung a lookalike of the dead general clad as a woman.^[252][253]

Works byPhilo of Alexandria andMarcus Manilius during the early Roman Empire have been referenced by some scholars in relation to trans people; classical historian Paul Chrystal wrote that Philo's account "describes transsexuals".^[254][255] In his treatiseOn the Special Laws,^[256] Philo wrote that "expending every possible care on their outward adornment," some people were "not ashamed even to employ every device to change artificially their nature as men into women".^[254][255] "Craving a complete transformation into women", some even had their penises removed.^[254][255]

Women who cross-dressed as men could have access to male opportunities, as depicted in the fictional story of an Athenian woman dressing as a man to vote in theekklesia in Aristophane'sEkklesiazusae, or whenAgnodice of Athens dressed as a man to get a degree in medicine,Axiothea fromPhlius cross-dressed to attend Plato's lectures, and Cornelia, the wife of general Gaius Calvisius Sabinus dressed as a soldier to join a military camp.^[257]

Roman emperorElagabalus (c. 204 – 222) is said by Roman historians to have depilated, worn makeup and wigs, rejected being called a lord and preferred being called a lady, and offered vast sums of money to any physician who couldprovide the imperial body with female genitalia.^[258] Despite marrying several women, the Syrian's most stable relationship was with chariot driver Hierocles, and Cassius Dio says Elagabalus delighted in being called Hierocles' mistress, wife, and queen.^[258] The Severan emperor has therefore been seen by some writers as transgender or transsexual.^{[258][259][260]} TheNorth Hertfordshire Museum started referring to Elagabalus with she/her pronouns in 2023.^[261]

In the 500s,Anastasia the Patrician fled life in the court ofJustinian I in Constantinople to spend twenty-eight years (until death) dressed as a male monk inEgypt,^[262] coming to be viewed by some today as a transgender saint.^{[263][better source needed][264]} Coptic texts from that era (the fifth to ninth centuries), like texts from around Europe, tell of many female-assigned people transitioning to live as men; in one, a monastic namedHilaria (child ofZeno) dresses as a man, brings about a reduction in breast size and cessation of menstruation through asceticism, and comes to be accepted by fellow monks as a male, Hilarion, and by some modern scholars as trans; the story ofMarinos (Marina), another Byzantine, who became a monk in Lebanon, is similar.^[4][265]

Other Byzantine hagiographies describeeunuchs, who occupied a kind of third-gender status, likeIgnatios of Constantinople (who became patriarch of Constantinople and a saint).^[266][267]

In 2002, analysis of a skeleton found in earlier excavations in Catterick, England revealed what was originally reported as a woman wearing ornamental jewelry but was later interpreted as a man and possibly agallus in 4th century Roman Britain.^[268]

Norse society stigmatized effeminacy (especially sexual passivity, but also—it is sometimes said—transgender and cross-dressing behavior),^[269][270] calling itergi,^[271] At the same time, the characteristics the Norse revered in their gods were complicated;^[270]Odin was skilled in effeminateseiðr magic,^[272] and assumed the form of a woman in several myths,^[273] andLoki too changed gender on several occasions^[274][275] (for which reason some modern works label or depict the trickster deity asgenderfluid).^[276][277]

In 2017, archaeologists found that the bones of aViking buried in Birka with masculine grave goods were female; some suggested the burial could be a trans man, but the original archaeologists said they did not want to apply a "modern" term and preferred to see the person as a woman.^[278][279]

Gregory of Tours in his 6th centuryHistory of the Franks, included a story about a castrated man who dressed in women's clothing and was alleged to be living as a nun at themonastery of the Holy Cross in Poitiers.^[280]

A 2021 study concluded that a grave from 1050 to 1300 inHattula,Finland, containing a body buried in feminine clothing with brooches, valuable furs and a hiltless sword (with a second sword later buried above the original grave), which earlier researchers speculated to be two bodies (a male and female) or a powerful woman, was one person withKlinefelter syndrome and that "the overall context of the grave indicates that it was a respected person whose gender identity may well have been non-binary".^[281][282]

In the 1322 bookEven Boḥan,Kalonymus ben Kalonymus (fromProvence, France) wrote a poem expressing lament at and cursing having been born a boy, calling a penis as a "defect" and wishing to have been created as a woman, which some writers see as an expression ofgender dysphoria and identification as a trans woman.^{[283][284][285][286]}

In 1394, London authorities arrested a male-bodiedsex worker in women's clothing who went by the nameEleanor Rykener.^[287] Rykener reported having first gotten women's clothing, and learned embroidery (perhaps completing an apprenticeship, as female apprentices did) and how to sleep with men for pay, from Elizabeth Brouderer;^[287][288] Rykener also slept with women.^[288] Rykener's testimony offers a glimpse into medievalsexual identities.^[289]Carolyn Dinshaw suggests Rykener's living and working in Oxford as a woman for some time indicates Rykener enjoyed doing so,^[290] and Cordelia Beattie says "it is evident [Rykener] could pass as a woman", and passing "in everyday life would have involved other gendered behaviour";^[291] historianRuth Mazo Karras argues Rykener was a trans woman, and could also be described as bisexual.^[292][293] HistorianJudith Bennett argues people were familiar enough withhermaphroditism that "Rykener's repeated forays into the space between 'male' and 'female' might have been as unremarkable in the streets of fourteenth-century London as they would be in Soho today",^[294] while Robert Mills argues officials would have been even more concerned by Rykener's switching of gender roles than by sex work.^[295]

A few medieval works explore female-to-male transformation and trans figures.^[296] In the 13th century FrenchRoman de Silence, Nature and Nurture personified try to sway a child born a girl but raised a boy, who longs to do some feminine things but also long enjoys life as a man before being put into a female identity and clothing at the end of the story;^[297] Silence has been viewed as (at least temporarily) transgender.^{[296][298][299]}Christine de Pizan'sLivre de la mutacion de Fortune (1403) opens "I who was formerly a woman, am now in fact a man [...] my current self-description is the truth. But I shall describe by means of fiction the fact of my transformation" using the metaphor ofIphis and Ianthe^[300] (a mythJohn Gower'sIphis and Ianthe also took up), leading some modern scholars to also viewFortune's protagonist (and Gower's) as transgender.^[296][298]

Trans figures and non-normative gender traits were acknowledged by the medieval church, and were often interpreted as expressions of God's plan, rather than deviations from it.^[266] Many transgender saints and clergy members were celebrated and uplifted by the medieval church. Trans people were canonized in the early days of Christianity on account of their "extraordinary lives" and the view that they were extraordinarily blessed by God.^[301] As the medieval church developed stricter policies and procedures, its view of trans people changed.

Marina the Monk, or Marinos, was a transgender person in the clergy. Sources vary, but he likely lived somewhere between the fifth and eighth centuries near modern-day Syria.^[302] Marinos, though assigned female at birth, chose to enter a monastery as a monk, following his father and saying the modesty and abstinence that came with the life of a monk would protect his identity. He was expelled from the monastery after a woman accused him of impregnating her, but never refuted the claims made against him, as doing so would involve revealing his genitals; instead, he fathered the child and was eventually allowed back into the monastery along with his son. His sex was only discovered after his death. He is named a saint by both the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches.^[303]

The theme of "sexual disguise"^[304] was popular, especially in early monasticism. Numerous female hermits living alone in the desert dressed identical to male hermits.Mary of Egypt, who was born in Alexandria in the early fifth century, is one popular example of an "emasculated female saint."^[305] In depictions of her after her conversion to ascetic life, both in visual art and in personal accounts, Mary is portrayed as seemingly genderless. When she stripped herself of all aspects of her previous identity, she also seemed to have shed her gender.Thecla, a contemporary of the apostle Paul, shaved her head and adopted a man's dress in order to prove her devotion and piety.^[306] She, like Mary of Egypt, shed her female identity in pursuit of a devoutly religious lifestyle.

HistorianCaroline Walker Bynum has explored the idea of Jesus as an androgynous figure. In the 12th century, the idea of "mother Jesus" began showing up more and more in religious texts. In many Cistercian texts, Jesus is described as both the son of God, and the mother of all people. He is ascribed traits like nurturing and affectionate, which were not used to describe men at the time, presenting Jesus as somewhere between distinctly male and distinctly female.^[307]

Trans ideas continued to show up in religious writing throughout the Middle Ages. One story that bridged the gap between secular and religious ideas of transness is the fictional story of Blanchandin, which gives insight into attitudes towards transgender people in the Middle Ages. The fourteenth-centurychanson de gesteTristan de Nanteuil details how Blanchandin was physically transformed from woman to man in order to father St. Gilles, being visited by an angel who gives him testicles and a penis. Rather than being portrayed as a transgression against the natural order of things, this transition is seen as a "radiant expression of God's will". Blanchandin was viewed as having a special relationship to God and to his mission on earth.^[266]

Around the turn of the thirteenth century, the church's view of trans people began to change. The church developed a firmer stance on issues including non-normative gender expressions. As tensions rose between Christianity and Judaism, so did the divide between who was a part of the church and who was not. Those who did not fit neatly into the gender binary did not fit into the church. Religious doctrine insisted that intersex people choose one sex organ or the other to perform sexual acts with, lest they be accused of engaging in sodomy.^[308] TheCathars, who erased all ideas of sex and gender from their belief system, were labeled as heretics.^[309] The church's reaction to the Cathars exemplified a greater trend within the medieval church, one that did not accept rejection of the gender binary.

Balkan sworn virgins such asStana Cerović are women who take a vow of chastity and live as men; they dress as men, socialize with men, do men's activities, and are usually referred to with masculine pronouns in and outside their presence.^[310] In some cases, this is considered a separate third gender.^[172] They take their name from the vow of celibacy they traditionally swore. The gender role, found among several national and religious groups in the Balkans (including Muslims and Christians in Albania, Bosnia, Macedonia andDalmatia), dates to at least the 15th century.^[311][312] It is thought to be the only traditional, formally socially definedtrans-masculine gender role in Europe, but it has been suggested that it may be a survival of a more widespread pre-Christian European gender category.^[313]

On October 1, 2020,Petra De Sutter was sworn in as a deputy prime minister of Belgium underAlexander De Croo, becoming the most senior trans politician in Europe;^[314] De Sutter was previously aBelgian senator and aMember of the European Parliament, and is agynaecologist and the head of the department of reproductive medicine atGhent University Hospital.^[315]

Lili Elbe was a Danish trans woman and one of the first recipients ofsex reassignment surgery.^[316][317] Elbe was assigned male at birth and was a successful painter before transitioning.^[318] Shetransitioned in 1930 and changed herlegal name to Lili Ilse Elvenes.^[319] She died in 1931 from complications after ovary and uterus transplants.^[320][321]

Denmark is also known for its role in the transition of AmericanChristine Jorgensen, whose operations were performed in Copenhagen starting in 1951.^[322]

In 2017 Denmark became the first country in the world to remove transgender identities from its list of disorders of mental health.^[323]

Christine de Pisan makes one of the early accounts of gender transitioning in her autobiographical allegorical poemLe Livre de la mutation de fortune .^[324]

TheChevalier d'Éon (1728–1810) was a French diplomat and soldier who appeared publicly as a man and pursued masculine occupations for 49 years,^[325] but during that time successfully infiltrated the court of Empress Elizabeth of Russia by presenting as a woman, and later promoted (and may have engineered) rumours that d'Éon had been assigned female at birth,^{[326][327][328]} and thereafter agreed with the French government to dress in women's clothing, doing so from 1777 until death.^[325] Doctors who examined d'Éon's body after death discovered "male organs in every respect perfectly formed", but also feminine characteristics; modern scholars think d'Éon may have been a trans woman and/or intersex.^{[328][329][330]}

Herculine Barbin (1838–1868) was a Frenchintersex personassigned female at birth and raised as a girl. After a doctor's examination at age 22, Barbin was reassigned male, and legal papers followed declaring Barbin officially male. Barbin changed names to Abel Barbin, and wrote memoirs using female pronouns for the period before transition, and male pronouns thereafter, which were recovered (following Barbin's suicide at age 30) and published in France in 1872, and in English in 1980.Judith Butler refers toMichel Foucault's commentary on Barbin in their bookGender Trouble.

Coccinelle (Jacqueline Charlotte Dufresnoy, 1931 – 2006) was a French actress, entertainer and singer who made her debut as a transgender showgirl in 1953, and became the first person widely publicized as getting gender reassignment case in post-war Europe, where she became an international celebrity and a renowned club singer.^[331] Coccinelle worked extensively as an activist on behalf of transgender people in later life, founding the organization "Devenir Femme" ("To Become Woman").^[332]

In March 2020,Tilloy-lez-Marchiennes elected—and in May, inaugurated—Marie Cau as mayor, making her the first openlytransgender mayor in France.^[333]

An early reference to transgender people in the German medical literature appeared in 1829, in a brief review article byJohann Baptist Friedreich. This article was also republished in 1830.^[334][335] The article speculates on the causes behind a "female sickness" amongScythian priests, described byHippocrates and laterHerodotus; he compares this with transgender cases observed across various cultures.^[336] Friedreich's article was followed by a separate medical description that appeared in 1870.^[335]

In the early 1900s, transgender people became a subject of popular interest in Germany, covered by several biographies and the sympathetic liberal press in Berlin.^[337] In 1906,Karl M. Baer became one of the first known trans men to have sex reassignment surgery, and in 1907 gained full legal recognition of his gender with a new birth certificate, married his first wife, and published a semifictionalized autobiography,Aus eines Mannes Mädchenjahren ("Memoirs of a Man's Maiden Years"); in 1938, he emigrated to Palestine.^[338][339] The same year, Brazilian socialiteDina Alma de Paradeda moved toBreslau and became engaged to a male teacher, before committing suicide, after which a doctor revealed that her body was male.^[337] This made her one of the first trans women known by name in Central Europe or of South American origin.^[340] A biography published in 1907,Tagebuch einer männlichen Braut ("Diary of a male bride"), was supposedly based on her diary.^{[337][340][341]}

During theWeimar Republic, Berlin was aliberal city with one of the most activeLGBT rights movements in the world.Magnus Hirschfeld co-founded theScientific-Humanitarian Committee (WhK) in Berlin and sought social recognition of homosexual and transgender men and women; with branches in several countries, the committee was (on a small scale) the first international LGBT organization. In 1919, Hirschfeld co-founded theInstitut für Sexualwissenschaft, asexologyresearch institute with aresearch library, a large archive, and a marriage and sex counseling office. The institute was a worldwide pioneer in the call forcivil rights and social acceptance for homosexual and transgender people. Hirschfeld coined the wordtransvestite. In 1930 and 1931, with Hirschfeld's (and other doctors') help,Dora Richter became the first known trans woman to undergovaginoplasty, along with removal of the penis (following removal of testicles several years earlier),^[342] andLili Elbe underwent similar surgeries in Dresden, including an unsuccessful ovary anduterus transplant, complications from which resulted in her death.^{[320][343][344][345]} In 1933, theNazis burned the institute's library.^[346]

On June 12, 2003, theEuropean Court of Human Rights ruled in favor of Van Kück, a German trans woman whose insurance company denied her reimbursement for sex reassignment surgery andhormone replacement therapy, who sued underArticle 6 andArticle 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.^[347]

TraditionalNeapolitan culture recognizedfemminielli, a sort of third gender of male-assigned people with markedly feminine gender expression and an androphilic/homosexual orientation, who remain largely unstigmatized.^{[348][349][350]}

In 2006Vladimir Luxuria became the first openly transgender woman elected to the Italian Parliament and the first transgender member of a parliament in Europe.

In 2015, the Court of Cassation ruled that sterilization andsex reassignment surgery was not required in order to obtain a legal gender change.^[351]

Maria van Antwerpen is typically considered a transgender ortranssexual person by historians. van Antwerpen enlisted in the Dutch States Army and lived for many years as a man, marrying two women and being baptized as their second wife's father. van Antwerpen's first marriage resulted in a criminal trial in 1751 under charges of illegal marriage.^[352]

After 2013^[353]—when the government passed a law against "promoting" "non-traditional relations"^[354]—Russia became "notoriously hostile" to transgender people.^[353][355] Dmitri Isaev's clinic, which provided medical authorization for half the sex reassignment surgeries, was forced to operate in secret.^[356] In 2019, a court in Saint Petersburg, Russia's most liberal city,^[356] ordered a business which had fired a woman when she transitioned to reinstate her.^[357]

Among theItelmens ofSiberia, a third gender category of thekoekchuch was recorded in the 18th and 19th centuries, for people assigned male gender at birth but who dressed as women did.^[358]

According to historiansDan Healey andFrancesca Stella, scholarship on trans identities in the Soviet Union has been fragmentary and that "a comprehensive history of the Soviet transsexual is needed."^[359]

Following the revolutions of 1917,LGBT rights in the Soviet Union expanded greatly, including a greater awareness of gender diversity.Nikolai Koltsov, director of theInstitute of Experimental Biology, stated that there was "an infinite quantity of intermediate sexes," andEvgenii Fedorovich M., aState Political Directorate employee who had been born Evgeniia Fedorovna M. and who presented as a man, stated that "people live among us who do not fit neither the one nor the other gender" who "will begin to feel a sense of responsibility before society and become useful to it only when that society stops oppressing them and strangling them due to its lack of consciousness and its petty-bourgeois barbarity."^[360][a] In 1929, thePeople's Commissariat for Health organised a conference on "transvestites," including discussions about people seeking to change sexes and culminating in a resolution calling for same-sex marriage to be officially recognised.^[361] Much of the relative openness of the 1920s was reversed in the 1930s underJoseph Stalin, including the re-criminalisation of homosexuality in 1933.^[362]

In 1961, an interview with a trans woman was featured in the press where she recounted theabuse she faced from doctors, including being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and being physically beaten.^[363]

In 1968, in theLatvian Soviet Socialist Republic, surgeonViktors Kalnbērzs [lv], who had invented apenile implant that had already seen relatively widespread use in the Soviet Union and Europe to treat erectile dysfunction, was approached by a trans man aboutsex reassignment surgery. After the patient underwent consultations with several specialists, including an endocrinologist and a psychiatrist, Kalnberz was able to obtain authorisation from the Latvian Ministry of Health to perform the surgery over the course of 1970 to 1972. Kalnberz's actions were subsequently reviewed by a special committee, which found the operation had been medically necessary, but he was formally reprimanded by theSoviet Ministry of Health.^[364][365]

There are records of several 16th-century people in Spain who were raised as girls and subsequently adopted male identities under various circumstances who some historians think were transgender, includingEleno de Céspedes^[366][367] andCatalina de Erauso.^{[368][369][370]}

During theFranco era, thousands of trans women and gay men were jailed, and today fight for compensation.^[371] In 2007, a law took effect allowing trans people to change gender markers in documents such as birth certificates and passports without undergoing sterilization and sex reassignment surgery.^[372][373]

Bülent Ersoy, a Turkish singer who was assigned male at birth, had agender reassignment surgery in April 1981.^[374]Rüzgar Erkoçlar, a Turkish actor who was assigned female at birth, came out as a trans in February 2013.^[375]

Irish-born surgeonJames Barry had a long career as a surgeon and rose to the second-highest medical office in theBritish Army,^[376] improving conditions for wounded soldiers and the inhabitants ofCape Town,South Africa, and performing one of the first caesarean sections in which both the mother and child survived.^[377]

In 1946, the first sex-reassignmentphalloplasty was performed by one British surgeon on another,Harold Gillies onMichael Dillon (an earlier phalloplasty was done on a cisgender man in 1936 in Russia).^[378]

Roberta Cowell, a formerfighter pilot in World War II, was the first knowntrans woman to have undergonegender-affirming surgery the UK, in 1951.^[379]

In 1961, English modelApril Ashley was outed as transgender. She is one of the earliest Britons known to have had sex reassignment surgery, and was made aMember of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 2012 for promoting trans equality.^{[380][381][382]}

In 2004, theGender Recognition Act passed, giving transgender people legal recognition of their gender before the law subject to certain conditions.^[383]

Edward de Lacy Evans (1830–1901) was a servant, blacksmith, and coal miner who publicly identified as male for the majority of his life, was registered as the father of his son, and referred to as "Dadds" and "Uncle" by his family members.^[384] He was inducted into various mental health asylums, such as Kew Lunatic Asylum, in attempts to "cure" his trans male identity.^[385] Evans made international news in 1879 when it was discovered he was assigned female at birth.^[384] Circa 1880, he made his identity publicly known, performing in theMelbourne Waxworks under the tagline "The Wonderful Male Impersonator"^[386] and in Sydney as "The Man-Woman Mystery".^[384]

The first reported case of an Australian undertaking a sex change operation was an ex-RAAF Staff Sergeant Robert James Brooks in February 1956.^[387]

The Gender Dysphoria Clinic atQueen Victoria Hospital, Melbourne was established by Dr Trudy Kennedy and Dr Herbert Bower in 1975. It moved toMonash Medical Centre in 1989 and closed in 2009.^[388]

Australia's first transgender rights and advocacy organizations were established in 1979: the Melbourne-based Victorian Transsexual Coalition and the Victorian Transsexual Association; followed in 1981 by the Sydney-based Australian Transsexual Association, which included prominent activist, academic and authorRoberta Perkins.^{[citation needed]}

In 1995,Georgina Beyer became the first openly trans mayor in the world whenCarterton, New Zealand elected her, and in 1999, she became the first transgender member of a parliament, winning election to representWairarapa; in 2003, the former sex worker helped pass theProstitution Reform Bill decriminalizing sex work.^[389]

Some Māori use the termswhakawahine ("like a woman"),tangata ira tāne ("human man") to refer to trans-woman- and trans-man-like categories.^[390] The related termfakafifine denotes male-assigned people inNiue who fulfill a feminine third gender.^[391] Similarly, in theCook Islands,akava'ine is aCook Islands Māori (Rarotongan) word which, due to cross-cultural contact with other Polynesians living inNew Zealand (especially the Samoanfa'afafine), has been used since the 2000s to refer to transgender people of Māori descent from the Cook Islands.^[392]

InSamoa, thefa'afafine ("in the manner of women") are a third gender with uncertain origins which go back at least to the beginning of the twentieth century.^[393] Fa'afafine are assigned male at birth, and express both masculine and feminine gender traits,^[392][394] performing a role otherwise performed by women.^[391] The wordfa'atamaloa is sometimes used for a trans-male or tomboyish gender category or role.^[390]

InTonga, the related termfakafefine or more commonlyfakaleiti ("in the manner of ladies") denotes male-assigned people who dress and work as women and may partner with men, and call themselves simplyleiti ("ladies").^[391][395] They are common—one of the children of former kingTaufa'ahau Tupou IV (d. 2006) is aleiti—and still held in high regard, though colonization and westernization have introduced some transphobia.^[395]

In Fiji,vakasalewalewa (also writtenvaka sa lewa lewa)^[396] are male-assigned people who perform roles usually carried out by women.^[390][397] InTahiti, therae rae fulfil a similar role.^[391]

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