Transgender America is both under attack and more visible than ever. The U.S. is in the midst of a cultural and political struggle over gender identity—where progress and backlash exist simultaneously. Trans communities continue to resist, create, and redefine what it means to live authentically in America.

Long before the modern word “transgender” came into being, Indigenous nations across the continent recognized that gender was not confined to two fixed poles. Two-Spirit people, revered in many traditions, embodied roles that were spiritual, social, and deeply respected. Colonization disrupted those traditions, enforcing rigid binaries of male and female that would dominate centuries of law, medicine, and religion in the United States.